


So Much for My Happy Ending

by prplmunky



Category: Sucker Punch (2011)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2014-12-03
Packaged: 2018-02-28 00:57:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 18
Words: 33,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2713090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prplmunky/pseuds/prplmunky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set at the end of the movie: Spoilers. What happens when the guardian angel is denied paradise? A look at institution life after the escape took place. A femslash fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Copyright Disclaimer: The characters featured in the cast of Sucker Punch written herein do not belong to me, they belong to their creator Zack Snyder and are the sole property of Warner Bros. Inc. Italicized dialogue is taken directly from the screenplay and may belong to Zack Snyder or Steve Shibuya. Any characters and additional storyline written are sole property of the Elves Living Inside of My Skull.
> 
> Content Disclaimer: The movie was rated PG-13 and skirted around many of the issues of the characters being affected by sex and violence by escaping into other realities. While I will be writing these elements into the story, I plan on showing things as they are, this story will contain strong language and elements of physical/sexual violence, as well as other adult themes. So as not to succumb to gloom and doom I plan on having at least one of the characters fall in love at some point, so an explicitly written sex scene will follow.
> 
> Rape Disclaimer: It was evident in the movie that the girls were being assaulted against their will, I plan to address this issue and if reading about rape drastically affects you in a negative manner, this is probably not the story for you.
> 
> Spoilers Disclaimer: This story takes place at/after the end of the movie, so it will reference things that have already happened. We begin at the end, ten minutes before the close of the film.

The smell of antiseptic permeated the room, the harsh light glinting off of his instruments, sparkling like a promise, the promise of peace.

Babydoll started as the High Roller burst into the back room, smelling faintly of money, and reeking of scotch and cigars. The heavy oak door squeaked on its hinges as the door shut behind him, she could almost hear Blue's laughter beyond it as he counted his money.

"C'mere pretty Baby," the High Roller listed a little as he walked, the after effects of Blue's top shelf settling on him, "I paid goooood money for you." She started backwards as he came for her, finding her escape blocked as she felt the heavy wooden frame of the bed press into her calves. Felt his breath on her neck and the rough stubble of his jaw as he gripped her hair and pulled her in for a forceful kiss. He mumbled into her mouth as she squirmed, "Mmmmm, so sweet they should call you Candy." His other hand began roaming her body, kneading her breasts roughly through her blouse. He dropped his other hand to join the first. Babydoll felt the sharp corners of the rhinestones dig into her flesh and shied away. "Oh nonononono. We're not gonna play That way are we?" He gripped the blouse in both fists and tore it open, glass gems tinkling as they hit the floor.

Then he was on top of her, his greater weight pinning her to the bed. He wedged a knee in between her legs, spreading them apart. He put one hand on her throat to keep her still as the other moved down, questing, probing, hunting.

"It's not…it's not supposed to be like this!" She choked into his grip, tears beginning to roll down her cheeks.

"'Supposed'? Ha, honey this is the ONLY way it's gonna be for you." His grin turned feral as he bunched her silken panties and began to drag them down her legs. He laid his palm upon her tuft of golden curls, fingers poised to delve into his prize. But something about her words gave him pause, his brow furrowed, trying to figure out what it was, and then he realized…

"Oh you stupid slut, you better not have, or else I'll show you what you  **really**  deserve." As he realized a real virgin wasn't 'supposed' to know anything about how this interaction was going to play out. He wedged a finger into her cleft and felt, other than the tightness of her walls and the dryness of her fear, nothing.

He'd been played. And the High Roller was not a man to be toyed with.

He pulled his hand out and slapped her full across the face. This wasn't Blue's fault; Blue knew the quality of his product when he brought it in. This had everything to do with the girl, and whichever one of those cunt licking inverts she gave herself away to in the five days before he got to her.

" **Do you have any idea how much you cost?** " His fingers wove into the locks at the base of her skull, lifting her up of the bed until he was eye to eye with her, flecks of spittle landing as he yelled. " **Too much!** " He let the red mists at the corners of his vision take over, enjoying the sensation of using his grip to smash her too beautiful face into the solid wood of the bedpost, venting his rage again and again, teaching this girl and all girls that No One fucks with the High Roller.

_Jesus! Did you-did you see the way she looked at me? Just…in that last moment, it was like…_

_Doctor, is it done?_

_Doctor Gorski, what do you know about this one? There was something very peculiar and…_

_Yes, her mother's death plunged her into a deep depression and then in a fit she accidentally killed her sister. Poor child, it's a shame I couldn't do more for her, I wasn't given much time you see._

_Yes, but you recommended the procedure._

_Oh, I'm afraid not. I will admit she has been quite a handful, in just one week here she stabbed an orderly, started a fire and helped another patient to escape. But I don't agree with this solution, Doctor._

_But why would you sign for a procedure you don't agree with? That is your signature, is it not? I've been doing this for quite some time Doctor, and to be honest with you I've wondered myself whether or not it's right, and I have seen some tortured souls in here, believe me. But this one…something in her eyes, I've never seen anyone that…the way she looked at me, it's like she wanted me to do it. I hope it helps her._

It was easier, easier to not be, to sink into this blackness that was even deeper than the palace in the snows, and anyway, the palace wasn't safe anymore. The snow had quenched the damage from her initial battle there, but the smoldering embers sprang back to life the moment the High Roller had touched her, his hand igniting her last safe haven. The cedars groaned and popped as they fell, their flames melting the ice, the snow drifts replaced by a rain of ash.

_Hi. You remember me?_

Blue's voice echoed into the blackness. It was better here, better not to be. Better to never go back, the old man had broken his promise to her, this wasn't a perfect victory, this was Hell.

_Listen, listen, I gotta bad feeling okay? This is not the way we should be running this place-_

_**We** _ _don't run the place,_ _**I** _ _run it. In the chair._

_Look, I'm not…I'm not hurting these girls anymore._

_I'm not doing this._

_Guys, don't do this to me now please, I need her in this chair, put her in the goddamned chair. Thank you. Close the door, please?_

The echoes persist, trying to wind themselves around her, their tenuous grasp providing a way back to the realms beyond the darkness, the worlds of color, pain and noise. "Hold on, what is it, you're not here, you're not here anymore, you're in paradise? Nonononono nonono nononono."

She doesn't want to see the light if all she'll see is his face.

"You're still here, you're here with me, and all this shit, and you don't go away unless I say so, okay?"

He kisses her and starts to cry, knowing that he'll never see those eyes light up in defiance again.

"That's not right…" The caress turns into a stranglehold, willing her not to leave, to keep her here by his force of will, His Girl. "That's not right, you come back to me."

_Stop right there, move away from the girl!_

_I wasn't doing anything. Look at her, she's gone, look at her face, she's not here whattayou think I wanna do? I take care of these girls, I look out for them, these are_ _**my** _ _girls. Tell them, TELL THEM!_

_Take him out of here._

The first sense to pierce the blackness was pain. An all consuming throbbing wrongness behind her eyelids, and horrible sinking sensation that something was broken, irreparably broken.

The second sense was sound, a low hum, almost melodic. Where Blue's voice had been dark and sinister, this one was warm, comforting, it made Babydoll feel safer, something she hadn't felt in a what seemed like forever.

"Baaaaby, c'mon Babydoll, open them pretty eyes for me, I know you can do it."

Paired with the voice was a third sense, a slow rocking, like a lazy summer day in a hammock, or a boat bobbing gently on calm oceans.

"Baaaaaabydoll, wake up, just give me a wink, c'mon, just one and I'll let you go back to sleep, I promise."

There was something…familiar about the voice, and she couldn't place her finger on it, but it intrigued her, and she was curious enough to follow it out of the blackness, into the world of light and pain.

She wasn't in the backroom at the brothel anymore. She recognized the fraying sheets of their common dormitories draped over her body, warding off the chill. Then the warmth of another body pressed against her made the cold flee entirely.

She looked up above her, outlines slowly coming into focus as she squinted against the swelling around her eyes. She couldn't shake the familiarity of that outline, just like the voice in the darkness.

"Hey tough guy, good to see you made it." A grin flashed in the moonlight and the recognition made her heart stop, and then beat in double time.

"R-Rocket?" Babydoll could scarcely believe it, this was impossible, she could not be here, free of Blue, and sitting in her own bed cradled in Rocket's arms, things like this didn't happen. "But you were- and they said that-"

"Shhhh, it's okay, I'm okay, I promise, well, not entirely okay, I have a bunch of stitches in me, so don't move around too much wouldja?"

Babydoll nods, words beginning to fail her.

"I'll explain everything later, but right now you need to rest, I just needed to know that when you woke up you'd be here and not-" her voice cracks, betraying her confidence, "not someplace else. But you're here now, and that's what matters. You're safe here with me, so rest, I'll be here when you wake up, I promise."

Baby's eyes droop shut against the mottled bruising of her cheeks, her breathing starts to slow and even out as she burrows closer into Rocket, who holds silent vigil over her charge.

Rocket scoots closer to the figure using her thigh as a pillow, the thick cotton weave of the strait jacket keeping her from wrapping her arms around the person she never thought she'd see again. Her chest shook and she sniffled, tears tracking down the planes of her cheeks. When Babydoll had opened her eyes, only one had even tracked to Rocket's face, and the pupil had been large and unchanging, never quite focusing on her, always looking slightly past her. Baby's left eye, the eye that now bore a newly scabbed over hole just below her brow, that eye strayed past her, staring into endless infinity, that eye was useless.

Babydoll was blind.


	2. Chapter 2

**So Much for My Happy Ending – Chapter 2**

_Don't get mad about this._

The blossoming flame of the city engulfs her view, and then morphs into the stain rapidly spreading across her stomach. She could feel the numbing cold grip her body, it was so very cold.

_When you get free, tell Mom I love her._

_I promise._

And the kitchen, with its dank, filthy tile caressing her body, and the pain, faded to black.

"Shit! I can't get a pulse, is the crash cart primed? Good, everyone stand clear of the girl, I said STAND CLEAR!"

Rocket convulsed on the table, eyes riveted to the ceiling as her heart kick started itself.

"Nurse, NURSE! I need two more mils of morphine, stat! I don't want to save this girl only to have her stroke out from shock."

Cool, latex covered fingers press against her arm, hurried but steady. A pinch, then a warm sensation flooded through her, rounding off the jagged edges of her reality.

Rocket's gaze strayed from its frozen death mask, and she caught sight of the doctor. Several blinks later, her vision cleared and she could focus on his face.

"Hello there uh-" He glanced down at a file in his hand, "Raquelle." She winced at the use of that name. "Looks like you're quite the fighter, we thought we'd lost you for a minute there. You've lost a lot of blood, but you're stable now. The nurse will be with you as soon as she preps your suture kit. How are you feeling, can you speak?" He leans in closer.

"Hurts." A bare whisper, why did her throat feel like she'd been screaming?

"I'll bet, here, this should make you more comfortable." Another pinch and the room faded to grey. Her last memory is of the nurse, a needle in her hand as she put small, neat stitches into her side. It reminded her of Sweetpea's embroidery.

She awoke to pain. A glance upward revealed padded walls and a heavy door complete with an observation grate. This room was different from where she usually slept, but it was a prison all the same. Her life, the same as it had always been.

Rocket thought that's all her life would ever be, four walls and a door. The only view out was into the world of the insane, with no hope of ever seeing the sky.

No hope of anything at all, until she showed up.

"Babydoll!" The name tumbled from her lips without conscious thought.

Her first instinct was to touch her side, where the knife went in, to reassure herself that everything happened the way she remembered it. Maybe there really was a chance of getting out of this place. Maybe Sweetpea and Babydoll, Blondie and Amber really Did make it out, that they'd get a chance to make their way in the outside world. She hoped so.

Another wash of pain lanced down her side. She moved her arm to cover it, and found her motion arrested by rough cotton weave.

"Dammit!" She struggled within the tight embrace of the strait jacket, letting out a sigh of defeat when it refused to relinquish its hold. "I guess it wouldn't be right to LET US INJURED CRAZIES MOVE AROUND TOO MUCH!" She shouted to the four walls because she could, because no one ever seemed to care anyway.

Bracing the uninjured side of her back and shoulder against the wall, Rocket slowly slid up the rubberized surface until she was standing. She padded across the floor towards the observation grate at the door, the soles of her bare feet slapping against the leather as she went. Careful to keep her balance, she rose up onto her toes until she could see out into the ward.

She almost fell over when her vision was obscured by a shock of blonde hair being led down the hallway.  _She's not supposed to be here anymore!_ A gasp turned into a breath as she shouted through the door.

"Baby!" Stretching her neck as far as it would go, flexing her calves until she thought they would burst, "BABYDOLL!" She hoped it wasn't too late, that Babydoll was still…

Was still Here, and not trapped forever in those other realms, a prisoner in her own mind. She screamed her name again, willing that head to turn, to see the intensity burning in her dark gaze. She wanted to see the champion that dragged them up from the depths of their despair. To glance the hero that brought them hope. Her promise of freedom dazzling like the sunlight they had long forgotten.

Another step from the trio down the hallway and they were past her door, without even a shiver of reaction from Babydoll's stooped frame.

"No! It can't end like this." Rocket dropped down to her heels and stepped back from the door as far as she could, "I won't let it."

She yelled out Babydoll's name again, this time as a battle cry.

The heavy door shuddered as Rocket threw her body against it, every ounce of strength and determination going into felling this one nemesis. She stepped back and charged again, willing the frame to splinter, for the hinges to crack and fall to dust. She needed a miracle and she'd sacrifice anything to be able to change this story's ending.

Or at least change someone's mind.

"Jesus! Frank, what the hell was that?" One of the orderlies turned and looked through the grate as Rocket slammed into the door for the third time. "Oh Shit! It's that crazy girl the cook knifed."

The other orderly turned to dismiss him, "Oh c'mon Charlie, she's in that damned padded room in a strait jacket, what could happen?" But even he started to look nervous as the banging continued, little clouds of dust erupting from the door frame.

"Frank, what the hell do you think's gonna happen when she tears out those fifty stitches in her side huh? You think a band-aid's gonna fix all that if we don't do something? And then what? We got the cops sniffing all around in here 'cause the staff's knifing the patients. How long do you think it'll take before they realize we were in on some of that stuff as much as that Jones guy they just nabbed, huh?"

Frank's resolve started to fade as Charlie's words sank in, he looked less self-assured and more like an animal realizing that it's caught in a snare.

"Okay Charlie, you win, I'll watch uh…" He tilted Babydoll's chin upwards, her eyes glazed over and staring into infinity, "this one, you go take care of Bruiser over there."

Charlie rolled his eyes, "Great, leave me the easy job why doncha?" He turned back toward the door.

Rocket wasn't going to give up, she couldn't accept that after everything they'd been through together, that this was how it would end, her alone in a cell, Babydoll dragged off to some dark corner of the institution and no news from the others, especially not from her sister. She squared her shoulders, blood was beginning to seep out of the bandage and soak through the bleached cotton of the strait jacket.

"Just a few more," she mumbled to herself, "then something has to happen." She readied herself for another charge, her war cry cut short by the face and voice of an orderly booming down on her from the grate.

"Hey crazy girl! Cut it out!"

"Not until you let me see her." Rocket tried to sound cocky, like she expected him to obey, rather than let him know that she was downright shocked that someone had even noticed her.

Charlie looked confused for a moment. "You mean vegetable girl? The one that's been turning this place upside down all week?"

Rocket gritted her teeth at the description. "Yes, that's her, she's my friend, I need to see her." She waited. "Please."

Charlie still couldn't put all the pieces together. "So, if you get to see vegetable girl then you'll stop trying to bust open all your stitches and kill yourself?"

"Those are the essentials, yes."

Charlie couldn't believe his luck. "And you don't wanna hurt her or nothin, right?"

Rocket looked down at her jacket, the brass buckles gleaming dully. "Does it look like I can harm anyone but myself?"

Charlie considered that for a moment. "Nah, I guess not. Hey Frank! Bring the girl over here." A jingle as he unhooked his key ring, "You get back into that far corner, no funny business when I open this thing."

Rocket backed into the corner and waited, a flash of red caught the orderly's attention, "Aw shit, you better not've torn out them stitches." He turned and called back to his partner, "Frank, hurry it up, we gotta get new dressings for the damned fool crazy girl, she's bleeding through 'er jacket."

"What?" He shoved Babydoll ahead of him, prodding her forward into the cell. He looked over at Rocket, "Aw shit, okay, we can't watch them  _and_ get the dressings." He thought for a moment, "Hey Charlie, you go get the gauze and stuff and I'll stay here and watch both of 'em. How 'bout that?"

"Frank, why is it I always gotta do the hard stuff?"

"That's 'cause I got seniority on you Charlie, and senior staff knows how to uh…what's it called again? Oh yeah, delegate. You should learn how to delegate, Charlie. It's the only way you'll get anywhere in this place."

Charlie considered this as he walked off to get the medical supplies, a thoughtful look on his face.

Frank began to back out of the room; Rocket noticed this and spoke up, "You're leaving?"

"Nah, I'll be in the hall, I just don't wanna be caught alone in a room with a helpless vegetable and a wounded girl in a strait jacket."

"You seem to be the only orderly here who doesn't want that."

Frank snorted at this, "Who do you think I am, Blue? You really are crazy, no offense." He shut the door, keys jangling in the lock as he turned it.


	3. Chapter 3

_Everyone has an angel, a guardian who watches over us._

Silence fell over the room as Rocket was left alone with Babydoll. Rocket circled her slowly, looking for any signs of recognition. She stepped back.

"Babydoll."

Nothing.

"Hey Baby, you did it, you tricked them all, they think you're gone, that there's nobody home." She grinned at her, letting her know the coast was clear. "It's okay. You're safe now. You can come back. It's over."

The silence thickened, settling over Rocket's soul like a dark cloud. Her smile faded.

A sigh fell from Babydoll's lips, breaking the tension. She knelt down in the middle of the floor, seemingly oblivious to everything. Rocket crouched down with her, albeit much slower without the aid of her arms for balance.

"C'mon Baby, you're a fighter, you can beat this, I know you can." She waited, hoping.

Baby's eyelids shut, blocking out her hundred yard stare. A faint rustle as she curled up on the floor, her limbs collapsing into the fetal position. She began to whimper, the words faint and almost indistinguishable. Rocket leaned in closer, straining to hear the whispered monologue.

"S'not…s'posed…to be…like…this…" A gasped intake of breath as she shuddered and curled into a tighter ball still. She backed away, scooting across the floor as if from an unseen foe. "No… **No!** "

Rocket moved quickly, she sat on the floor behind Babydoll, putting her body directly into her escape path, and waited. A few moments and Babydoll backed into her, a shiver rippled across her skin but she didn't shy away. Her breathing became less erratic and started to slow back to normal.

Rocket let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. Whatever had happened between their mission to get the knife and this moment, it had been bad. It was something horrific enough to shatter Babydoll's ironclad will and defiance.

Footsteps echoed in the corridor, it was Charlie coming back with the bandages. Steel rasped as a key slid into the lock and the door opened. Both men walked in on the tableau, Rocket's legs spread on the floor, bracketing Baby, who was curled up tight against them.

Frank cleared his throat, unsure of how to proceed.

_We can't know what form they'll take: One day, old man, next day, little girl. But don't let appearances fool you._

It was Rocket who spoke first, her voice thick with emotion. "It's okay, just come over here and undo the straps, I won't-I won't do anything, just please don't move her."

"Yes'm." He nodded gruffly and knelt next to her, his hands steady but gentle as he undid the leather strapping. He looked away in embarrassment as the canvas fell back, revealing large expanses of her skin underneath.

Rocket laughed once, mirthlessly. "Why Frank, I didn't know you were such a gentleman." He blushed, flustered, and started to explain himself.

She cut him off. "It's fine, I would have warned you but I didn't know what I had on under here either, and you would have had to strip me down to change the dressings anyway."

"S'right." Charlie chimed in as he handed the roll of gauze to Frank. Frank muttered to himself as he unrolled the gauze.

"Charlie, you got that antisepsi-whatever stuff too?" Charlie nodded. "Good, you put that on 'er while I get this dressing ready."

Charlie knelt down next to her, his eyes seeking hers for permission. "It's all right, go ahead." Rocket took a breath and held it. She winced as he pressed the soaked cloth pad to her wound. The chemicals hissed against the angry red flesh swollen around the stitching.

Air hissed out between her clenched teeth. "You got that bandage ready, Frank?"

"Right 'ere." The sharp sting of the antiseptic was replaced by a dull throb as he pressed the gauze pad to her wound and began to wrap the length of it around her midsection. "I do believe that'll teach you not to injure yerself so severely in the future."

Now finished with the job at hand, Frank pulled the rough cotton of the jacket back over her shoulders and started to redo the buckles. That task completed, he nodded and both men stood up, they stood that way for a few moments, as if silently conversing with each other about something.

Charlie looked at the other man, asking an unspoken question. Frank shrugged and began to walk towards the door. "S'not my business what happens after our shift is over, and I do believe it's quitting time. Charlie, what d'you think?"

Charlie thought for a moment. "I do think that I uh-con-ce, no, con-ci, nu uh, oh! I do con-cede with your superior authority on this matter." The key ring jangled once more, and the men's footsteps echoed as they walked down the tiled hallway, the sounds muffling as they gained distance.

_They can be as fierce as any dragon. Yet they're not here to fight our battles, but to whisper from our heart._

"Baaaaby." Rocket set herself to waking her, believing that it would be just like the days when Sweetpea would nudge her out of bed, half dreaming and not ready for school.

"C'mon Babydoll, wake up, you can do it, I know you're in there still."

Another whimper from the ball latched to her leg, Babydoll's breathing became erratic, faint struggles twitched through her body. Whatever thing had happened to her, it was happening again, and Rocket was helpless to stop it.

At least helpless in this world.

_Reminding that it's us, it's every one of us who holds the power over the worlds we create._

Rocket blinked. When she opened her eyes she was no longer trapped, imprisoned by cotton and thick walls. Here in the brothel she had power.

The King was dead.

Long live the Queen.

She put her arms above her head and stretched, something she'd been dying to do all day, her shoulders loosened, she bent to the side a little, feeling the stretch go all the way up her leg and-

"Ahhh!" She dropped her hands immediately, "I forgot I was twice stabbed." She moved much more gingerly after that.

The Queen of the brothel had  _some_  power, anyway…

She moved through the rooms, she stopped and stared into the green room. She took in the carnage left over from Blue's executions and Babydoll's last desperate stand against him, spilt blood had stained the hardwood floor a deep mahogany.

She noticed long stiletto heels peeking out from behind the shared vanities. The heels were attached to legs.

Rocket felt sick. "No…nonononono." She looked away and covered her eyes, shielding herself from the staring eyes and lifeless bodies of what had once been Blondie and Amber.

"You were all going to make it." Nausea welled up, her head spinning. "Everyone was going to go home, except for me." She glanced back once and fled the room, escaping from her fallen comrades.

Rocket ran out into the hallway, her vision cloudy and unfocused as she tried to erase the charnel house images from her mind. She crashed into walls and reeled like a drunkard. Small wonder Babydoll didn't want to come back. She had seen her friends callously murdered in cold blood, killed because of her plan. Rocket wondered if that was all Baby had seen.

Something caught her attention, it was a small sound, and Rocket thought she had just imagined it at first. She stopped and waited, realizing that she had wandered into the back rooms where the girls usually entertained the clientele. The sound came again, a faint whimpering, like a puppy in distress. It was coming from the room at the end of the hall, where the really important clients usually played out their fantasies. Blue had always jokingly referred to as the Honeymoon Suite. She pushed open the heavy oak door, eyes welling with tears as she took in the scene before her.

Babydoll lay curled up on the floor next to the bed. Someone had beaten her within an inch of her life. Her eyes were swollen shut and the lashes caked with dried blood. The schoolgirl outfit draped her form in shreds, rust colored smudges along the shoulders where it looked like she had tried to protect herself from oncoming blows.

Rocket was down on the floor with her in an instant, wrapping her arms around her wounded friend.

"Oh Babydoll, what did they do to you?" Tears began to fall as she clutched Babydoll to her, leaving tracks of pale skin visible underneath the layers of dried blood. "I need to get you out of here."

Her first instinct was to go deeper, to escape the horrors of this world and fight in the next. She almost did.

Almost.

And then she remembered the brilliant searing kiss of the flames as they engulfed her, the sizzling sound of her own flesh as the bomb decimated the city.

"I guess we need to work with what we have then." She tightened her hold on Babydoll, gritted her teeth and stood up. The pain in her side was almost unbearable.

Almost.

Step by excruciating step, Rocket made her way back to the common dormitories. She laid Babydoll down in the bed she usually slept in and went over to the sink to fetch a basin of water and some rags.

Finding no towels handy, she took a threadbare sheet from another bed and tore it into strips. That task completed, she took the basin and her rags and went back to Babydoll's side.

The skin of Baby's face was so pulverized and covered in blood Rocket hardly knew where to start. She soaked a strip, folded it over and placed it over her eyes, hoping the water would loosen everything, that maybe she could open her eyes better that way. While she waited for that to work, Rocket set to finding something for Baby to wear other than that atrocious outfit, its skimpy cut and glitzy gems now a seeming mockery of Babydoll's injuries. After a bit of searching she found the shift Babydoll usually slept in. Except the shift pulled on over the head, and that was the last thing Rocket wanted to do in that moment.

She thought awhile longer, and then remembered the top she usually wore buttoned up the front. A few long strides across the room and back and she had it in hand. She approached Babydoll and laid a palm on her shoulder, no response. She pulled off the remnants of the costume, relieved to find that her most traumatic physical injuries were the ones she had already seen. Placing a hand on her back, she tilted Babydoll up so she could slide the fabric underneath her. She set her back down, placed an arm through the sleeve and gently buttoned up the front.

She looked up at Babydoll's face, her most difficult task was about to start. For what seemed like hours, she carefully wiped the blood and grime off of Baby. Discarding the towels when they became too blood soaked. When she was left with only a few rags and the basin was almost empty, Rocket could finally make out the injuries that caused all the bleeding. There were a few cuts and scrapes near her hairline, and her skin had split across one cheekbone. Luckily the injuries around her eyes were all caused by whatever had hit her, and Rockets ministrations with the cool water had eased the swelling.

Not knowing what else to do, Rocket moved Babydoll up into a sitting position and slid in behind her. She hugged Baby too her chest and began to rock her. She closed her eyes and began to hum with the slow tempo, wishing she could remember songs, or even carry a tune.

She decided to talk to her instead.

"Baaaaby, c'mon Babydoll, open them pretty eyes for me, I know you can do it."

A small noise as the bundle tucked up against her shifted ever so slightly. Rocket leaned back so she could get a better look at her friend.

"Baaaaaabydoll, wake up, just give me a wink, c'mon, just one and I'll let you go back to sleep, I promise."

She almost fainted when Babydoll fulfilled her request, eyelids squinting against the blood engorged flesh. Rocket reminded herself to breathe, and to try not to freak Babydoll out, who had been through more than she could possibly imagine.

"Hey tough guy, good to see you made it." Having Baby back with her made her feel so light headed and elated she could do nothing but grin stupidly in disbelief.

"R-Rocket? But you were- and they said that-"

"Shhhh, it's okay, I'm okay, I promise." A twinge in her side. "Well, not entirely okay, I have a bunch of stitches in me, so don't move around too much wouldja?"

She felt Babydoll nod, and pulled her closer, tucking her head under her chin.

"I'll explain everything later, but right now you need to rest, I just needed to know that when you woke up you'd be here and not-" Rocket's façade of composure almost cracked, faced with the reality of how close she was to losing Babydoll forever. "Not someplace else. But you're here now, and that's what matters. You're safe here with me, so rest, I'll be here when you wake up, I promise."

Rocket watched her eyes close once more, willing herself not to panic, that everything would be okay this time, and that Baby  _would_  come back when she awoke.

She unconsciously starts to match Babydoll's breathing, the slower tempo calming her down.

Rocket blinked.

She looked down across the brass buckled straps at her charge; the steel willed warrior now seemed so incredibly fragile. She ached for the loss of Babydoll's sight. Rocket vowed to herself that she wouldn't leave her again, whatever greeted them with the dawn, and beyond, they would both face it.

Together.


	4. Chapter 4

Detective Flynt steepled his fingers and sank his head into his hands. He was trying to make sense of the case files splayed across his desk. He couldn't figure out the connection between the man sitting outside his office and the three women staring up at him from the glossy 8x10s. Individually, sure, that was easy. The man was an orderly at the institution and the three girls had been patients there.

The escaped patient, well, she had followed her runaway kid sister out into the big bad world and landed smack dab in the middle of Lennox House for her troubles. But why would she suddenly leave, and without her sibling in tow. Where was she going?

Two more sets of doe eyes stared up at him, pleading for help.

He sighed and looked over at the frosted glass of his office door. His case was adrift on a sea of questions, and not a single answer in sight.

"So let's get some." A declaration to the empty air. He stood up and opened the door, startling his guest. "Come in and sit down, would ya?"

Blue got up out of his chair and walked into the office, looking around nervously. He still felt the bruising on his arms from where the two officers had grabbed him and dragged him out of his domain.

Flynt gestured to the chair across from him. "Have a seat."

Blue sank down into the leather upholstery and waited.

"What can you tell me about these girls?" He waved his hand across the photos.

Blue swallowed, trying to find his voice. "These are-um, patients at Lennox House."

"One of them is, as my boys tell me, since she was alone in a room with you when they picked you up. Can you explain that?"

Blue paused for a moment, thinking furiously and trying to decide what version of his story wouldn't sound too incriminating.  _Deny, deny, deny, and hope nothing they try to pin to you sticks._  "I was trying to determine her level of awareness. We have many patients at Lennox House undergo that same operation, with different results. She was prone to dissociation and extremely violent fits, as you can see by my injury." Flynt eyed the blood stain on his shoulder. "She killed her sister in one such fit. I had hoped this procedure would help her to adjust to her surroundings better and perhaps make her more…compliant. She is an extremely difficult patient to deal with."

"'Was' you mean? Officer O'Hanlon said she could do about as much as the chair she was sitting in."

"Yes, well, that was what I was trying to determine when the Doctor and your officers barged in on me." He was getting a little cocky; since it was clear the Detective didn't have much in the way of incriminating evidence.

"Determining patients' awareness, that seems like something the Doctor would do herself, would it not?"

"The Doctor is a very busy woman, she takes great…personal interest in all the girls at the institution. I do many things for her to help alleviate her busy schedule."

"Is the Doctor so very busy these days she even needs help signing her own name?"

_Shit!_ "Excuse me?"

"That's what we got called in on, an instance of forging official documents. When they came to follow up on the complaint, they found you alone, in a room, with the patient who just received a-" He glanced down at the notes on his desk. "A lobotomy due to the aforementioned documents. It doesn't look good for you, Mr. Jones."

"Is there any proof that the signatures on these documents are forged and  _not_  done by Dr. Gorski's hand but she simply forgot about it? This woman signs hundreds of papers a day."

The Detective looked a little uncomfortable. "That is currently under investigation."

Blue smirked.  _Gotcha._  "Then if you're not going to slap cuffs on my wrists and throw me in the slammer, Detective, why am I here?"

Flynt turned one of the photos so that it was facing Blue. "What can you tell me about this girl?"

The familiar face surprised him and he blurted his answer, "That's Sweetp-I mean, that's Sarah. She's another patient at Lennox House. What's she got to do with this?"

" _Was_  a patient at Lennox House, Mr. Jones. For the Head Orderly you don't seem to know what's going on at your institution very well." Now it was Flynt's turn to smirk. "She escaped last night. We've been scouring the countryside searching for her. So I'll ask again, what can you tell me about this girl?"

"She's been at the institution for years, so has her sister, they were committed together." Blue stopped, not sure of what else to tell the Detective.

"What was the reason that she was committed?"

"It was a murder, but neither one would betray the other so they both took the fall for it."

Flynt blinked in surprise, these girls didn't look like cold blooded killers. "So why did they get sent to Lennox House instead of standing trial and going to prison like the rest of humanity?"

Blue shifted from foot to foot, reluctant to answer. "There were certain…things…done to the body, either before or after the murder, no one knew which."

The Detective raised an eyebrow. "What kind of things?"

Blue shuddered. "The genital mutilation kind of things, among others…"

That got a rise out of both eyebrows. "I see…" He got back to his initial point. "So tell me, Mr. Jones, why would two sisters who were so amazingly devoted to one another decide to split up, hmmm? Why don't we have two seemingly innocent but crazed women roaming the back woods of Vermont?"

The answer was unexpected.

"Because for all intents and purposes, Detective, this girl," he tapped Rocket's mugshot, "Sarah's sister, was dead."

"Excuse me, was that a serious answer, what sort of freak show are you running at your so-called 'institution'? You claim to 'take care' of these girls and then one ends up a brainless vegetable and the other winds up dead."

Blue stood and gripped the wood frame of the chair until his knuckles turned white. "I do what is in their best interest, which is to remain at the facility and receive treatment for their illnesses. Sometimes there is a…disagreement, shall we say, and some persuasion and truth bending need to be used."

"Talk, Mr. Jones, none of this 'best interest' crap. What the hell happened to this girl?" He pushed the photo of Rocket back across his desk.

"There was…an accident. We had heard rumors of an escape plot, but we didn't know who was involved, or what the plan actually was."

"So you just started killing patients?" Flynt was incredulous.

Blue put up his hands and backpedalled. "NOnononono, nothing like that. Eventually the culprits were caught trying to steal a knife from the cook. He is not…the most even tempered of our staff."

"So he hauled off and killed this girl because she pocketed his knife? I can't believe this!"

"He didn't  _kill_  her, he just, well…"

"Jones, spit it the fuck out or I will find  _some_  infraction you have committed and put you behind bars."

Blue's eyes widened a touch at that statement. "Alright, alright, you win. He stabbed the girl. But she wasn't dead! Or at least, not for very long…we have a licensed physician on staff and he brought her back, but not before the ringleaders of the escape group had been determined. I see you've met them already." He nodded towards the photos.

The detective snorted, "Well, at least  _one_  of them made it out successfully."

"Which is what I, well, we, were trying to prevent."

"Prevent in what way? Bodily injury? Lobotomies? Come  _on_ , Jones, I know these people are mentally disturbed, but you can't treat them like animals! And what is this 'we' nonsense?"

"It was Doctor Gorski's idea. She thought that if the girls saw the eventual consequences of their actions, they'd stop trying to escape. When Raquelle came out stable, we moved her to an isolated wing of Lennox House and let the other girls think whatever they wanted to. If they saw that their actions were causing the deaths of their friends, maybe they would stop."

"Or maybe they would martyr them and use that for motivation to succeed."

Blue sighed, "Yes well, that was the other possible outcome, we had been hoping for the first."

"Never bet at the track, Mr. Jones, your horse would lose every time." Flynt put on his hat, the felt brim hugging his crown. "Get your coat, Jones, we're going to go have a chat with your precious girls."

Blue stepped back, stuttering excuses, "Sir, I really don't think that's worth anything to your investigation, I mean, one is non-responsive and the other just came from a near death experience and-"

Detective Flynt stepped out from behind his desk and moved forward until they were nose to nose. Blue cowered as he sensed his predicament. Flynt smiled. It was a cheerless, fearsome, showing of teeth, all ice and determination. "If I were you, Mr. Jones, I would stop talking and just obey for once. Why not try using the lesson you are trying  _so_  hard to teach to these girls, hmmm?"

Blue swallowed and nodded, wordlessly.

His point made, Flynt turned and gestured towards the door. Both men walked out of the office, one seeking the truth, the other weaving lies.


	5. Chapter 5

The door slammed open, startling both Rocket and Babydoll into wakefulness. Rocket instinctually did the first thing that came to mind and threw herself over Baby, trying to shield her from whatever was coming with her body.

Babydoll was instantly alert, trying to find the threat. She scanned the room quickly, but her eyes revealed only blackness and a world of dim shadows. She tried hard not to panic, to ready herself for whatever had just burst through the door.

"Are you joking with me? Whose idea was this? What if something had happened to these girls?" Doctor Gorski was furious that her two most fragile patients had been left alone, unmonitored, for an entire night.

The two orderlies looked down, refusing to meet her eyes.

"Well?" She tapped her foot impatiently. "Someone must start talking soon or I will make sure neither of you sets foot in this building ever again."

"It was my fault, Doctor Gorski." Three sets of eyes glanced down to Rocket, still sitting on the padded floor of the cell. "I couldn't let them take her somewhere where she'd be all alone."

Doctor Gorski let out an aggrieved sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to will away the decimating headache that was starting to rule her day. She already had meetings scheduled with the Director of Lennox House and the detective investigating her case, there was enough on her plate without her patients suddenly developing martyred hero complexes.

Rocket opened her mouth, trying to further explain her actions. Doctor Gorski's patience snapped, she was tired of everyone treating her like she was second in command, this was  _her_  facility and it was about time that everyone recognized that and fell in line.

"Raquelle, that's  _enough!_ " Rocket looked back at her, startled, this was the first time Doctor Gorski had ever raised her voice. "Get…Up…" Her eyes were hard as cut glass and her tone brooked no argument. Gorski turned her attention to the orderlies, eyes downcast; desperately looking anywhere they could to escape the fierce stare she pinned to them. "Gentlemen, remove her jacket, Raquelle has shown that she is no longer an immediate threat to herself or others. Immobilization is no longer necessary." She gestured to Rocket and they stepped forward, fumbling with the straps and buckles as they removed the garment.

One of the orderlies finally got the buckles undone and was about to pull the jacket down off of her shoulders when the sight of all too much skin froze him in his tracks. He looked over at Doctor Gorski, she sighed, muttered something under her breath about ineptitude and stepped forward. She pulled the clean shift she had been holding over Rocket's head and slid the jacket the rest of the way off.

"There, now will you please follow me and escort them both, there is someone here who would very much like to talk with them." She turned sharply, her heels clicking on the linoleum, and started down the hall at a brusque pace, leaving the orderlies scrambling to keep up.

* * *

The towering archway of Lennox House loomed over Detective Flynt menacingly. He raised an eyebrow at the gothic structure before striking a match and lighting up a cigarette. He puffed at it once or twice, the hot ember piercing the gloom that seemed to perpetually hang about the building.

"Well, they're certainly not lacking for theatrics here…" He mused, taking in the pointed towers, their crowns capped with horns. It gave them the distinct impression of demons lying in wait, ready to snatch up helpless and unwilling young damsels at a moment's notice.

"And snatched them up it has." He stated, interrupting his runaway thoughts as he stepped up the worn stone entryway. He tossed down the remnants of his cigarette, crushing the stub under his heel. The smoke curled up into the air as he placed his palms against the warped wood of the entryway, eyes bright and attentive as he took in all the nuances of Lennox House. If he was going to have any luck with this case, he would need to know this world, see it through the eyes of the beleaguered staff, feel it the same way these girls felt it, a shelter and a prison.

He stepped up to the counter, his eyes meeting the receptionist's through the scuffed and dirty plate glass.

"Name please."

"Detective Flynt."

The title piqued her interest. It wasn't often that new visitors arrived, not any that had power in the real world, at any rate. "Are you expected?"

"Yes, I have an appointment with a…" He paused, fumbling for the pronunciation, "a Doctor Gorski? Is that correct?"

"Yes sir, her office is down this hall, these gentlemen will escort you to where you need to go, please let them know if you need anything else." She dismissed him, her gaze dropping back down to the stack of paperwork crowding her desk.

"Thank you ma'am," He responded warmly, tipping his hat before turning his attention to the solid looking gentlemen bracketing the alarmed gates. One eyed him, an unspoken challenge being sent before he raised his hand in signal to the gatekeeper. A buzzer went off and he pushed the gate open, gesturing Flynt to follow him past the portal and beyond, into the corridor.

As they walked he could hear the warped echoes of the patients of Lennox House, their screams mingling and reverberating until they melded into one piteous wail of tortured humanity. Flynt turned to his guide.

"Are they always like this?" He asked, a hand motion indicating the rows of locked doors.

"Yes, always." The guard responded curtly. "You stop hearing it after awhile."

Flynt felt his skin prickle and shuddered, the thought of being immune to that much suffering repulsed him.

They continued on, Flynt heard the cries fade as they moved further past the holding cells and into the block of staff offices. He noticed the bright whites of the two orderlies standing outside one of the offices, beside them were two women. He recognized the blonde from the photo, except her eyes were no longer pleading with him, they were glassy now, the look of a woman whose mind was somewhere else. Flynt turned his attention to their other charge, unlike the blonde, this one looked as feisty as the image on his desk; this one might be the key to cracking his case.

His guide knocked on the office door twice, waiting until he saw movement behind the frosted glass.

"Dr. Gorski will see you now." He stated flatly, before walking back down the hallway towards his post at the front gate.

The heavy door squeaked open on ungreased hinges and he took in the diminutive psychiatrist, she was small but fierce, a woman who knew the right path herself but had to convince everyone else to see her point of view.

"You must be…the detective?" She queried. Flynt noticed her accent, an Eastern European emphasis on the syllables. This doctor was an immigrant  _and_  a woman; a woman trying to change a predominantly male profession, whose favorite practice was the archaic torture and butchery that seemed better suited to the Inquisition than their stated purpose of helping the mentally unwell. Her life was not an easy one.

"Yes, ma'am," he nodded, "My name is Detective Flynt." He stuck out his hand and she shook it, her hand only covering half his palm. "I have come in regards to your calls about the forgery and…escaped patient?"

She sighed at the mention of the escape. "Yes, that is a most urgent issue, I think that the problems with paperwork will have to be dealt with later."

"Unfortunately I must agree with you, though I must admit, if this Jones fellow is guilty of everything he is accused of, it will be my pleasure to make sure he loses his freedom for a very long time."

She smiled at this, and it eased some of the tension lines creasing her brow. It was good to have an ally for once.

"Thank you Detective, I appreciate your honesty." She dismissed Babydoll's orderly and took her patient by the hand. "I am afraid your interview with her may be quite useless to your case, however, as you have come too late and she had just undergone a drastic and harmful surgical procedure."

"I understand, Doctor, but sometimes interviews aren't always about words." He said, his voice soft.

"Agreed, it is the same with therapy." She led them both back into her office and shut the door behind her. "Then let us begin."

"Yes," Flynt looked at her, taking in small clues he hadn't noticed before, the rough calluses on her hands, fading bruises and other subtle signs of neglect and abuse. "What is her name?"

Gorski responded automatically, not needing to see the case file to know about this particular patient, whose tragic story was always close to her heart.

"Her name is Briar, Briar Rose."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: I try to stay true to the characters, hopefully you agree with my choices...

The Detective's eyes snapped away from examining Babydoll and up to Doctor Gorski's face.

"You're kidding me, right? Isn't that the name of a girl in a fairytale?" His eyebrows drew together, a crease forming, he couldn't quite remember which story it was, the name elusive, dancing near the tip of his tongue.

" _Śpiąca Królewna_ , my mother used to call it. When she told me the story…" She noticed his blank, expectant stare and realized she'd been speaking in Polish. "My apologies, Detective, the story is, how do you say it? Oh yes, Sleeping Beauty."

He snapped his fingers in response, the neurons in his brain finally making the connection they'd been trying so hard for. "Yes! That's it." He took another look at Babydoll, her eyes dreamy and unfocused. "Her mother certainly knew her business when it came to naming her children, though I don't think she would have seen this coming…"

"No, I don't think any mother would expect this to happen to her child."

Flynt stepped closer, tucking a curled finger under her chin so he could look into her eyes.

"Briar," he whispered, trying to call her back from the depths of her subconscious. "Briar Rose," He waited, calling her name, watching for a spark in those lifeless eyes, a twitch in that still, porcelain face.

* * *

Babydoll was lost again.

It had been so easy to find her way back with Rocket there, but Rocket was gone, and she couldn't find her, no matter where she looked. The brothel rooms were empty and silent, the same with the Battlefield and the Castle, she dared not look for Rocket in the City of Trains, worried about what she might find there.

So now she was in that dark and empty place she had been right after the High Roller had come, and the whispers had returned.

_Briar_ …

They called her the name her mother had used.

No one she wanted to see used that name; her loved ones were already long gone.

The Doctor sometimes used it, but it was easier to see her as Madame Gorski. When she called her Babydoll the things they talked about didn't hurt as much, and then she played music to make the pain stop.

Blue knew it, in those sparse moments when she saw him outside the glitter and footlights of the brothel and its theater. He knew it but he never used it, instead calling her a host of other names, usually beginning with the possessive 'my.' Usually whispered in her ear as he breathed hotly onto her neck, his stubble rasping against her cheek as he-

"No!" She was not going to think about that right now.

_Briar…_

"No!" She commanded the whispers to stop; this was her domain, only she had power here.

_Briar Rose…_

The whispers continued, blending and echoing, filling her world with noise until she feared she would be overwhelmed by it.

"Stop-STOP IT!" She yelled at the shadows, as loud as she could.

* * *

"Briar Rose." Flynt repeated, trying to will some semblance of intelligence into those eyes.

A gasp of air as her face froze into a mask of fear.

"No!" She tried to look away, to put up a barrier of space between herself and the detective.

"Briar!" He called out her name more sharply, hoping it would snap her out of whatever daze she was in.

"No! Stop-" Babydoll had backed up into a wall. Finding no other retreat, she slid down to the floor and tried to make herself small, curling her arms around her and sobbing. "Stop…stop it…."

He moved towards her, but was cut off as Doctor Gorski stepped in front of her now hysterical patient.

"Detective Flynt, we are done here, you will not be further interviewing this patient."

He couldn't lose this lead. "Doctor, she is the  _last_ person to see Sarah leave this institution, the information she has is invaluable."

Vera was adamant. "Detective,  _look_  at her! This is not the brave, cunning woman who single handedly masterminded an escape and attacked her main abuser. She is a scared and broken child, whose only remaining refuge is within her mind; perhaps it is best we left her there."

He rocked back on his heels and exhaled in frustration. "You know I can't accept that."

"I am not saying this is forever, but in this moment, Briar is far too fragile for an interrogation of this sort. Perhaps she will come back to her senses, but if she does, it will be on her  _own_  timeline,  _not_  yours."

Flynt bit back his commentary, accepting defeat in this battle, at least for now.

The doctor turned and picked the phone's handset up off of her desk. "I need an orderly sent to my office to escort a patient to a supervised holding cell." She dropped the receiver back into its cradle.

"Detective Flynt, you need to leave."

"Whoa, Doctor, look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cause any harm, I-"

"No, you don't need to leave the facility, just my office for the moment. I need to help my patient."

He saw her flick the power switch on a tape reel, his eyes twitching as he tracked the needle on the VU meter. Soft strains of music filtered into the room.

"Please shut the door behind you, Detective."

He did so, the last image he saw before closing the door was of the Doctor, crouched down with her patient, her voice soft and coaxing.

* * *

" **I'll kill you!** "

The detective was hit hard by something moving fast, he looked down in surprise to see his other lead, the kid sister. She was trying to pummel him to the best of her ability, which wasn't much considering she had to free herself of the orderly, whose arms were wrapped around her in a bear hug, to do so.

She struggled some more, startling Flynt with a few more lunges when she almost broke free of her captor's desperately tight hold. She went still when she realized she couldn't escape, letting out a long-suffering sigh as she settled on glaring at Flynt with all the malice she could muster.

The detective tried very hard to keep his face serious, faced with this tiny, would-be menace. "You, on the other hand, are exactly what I was expecting."

"What did you do to her?" She spat out the words, her chest heaving with exertion from within the confines of the arms wrapped around her. She could still hear the sounds of Babydoll's cries in her head, and it gave her courage.

"Me? I didn't do anything. I just called out her name."

" _Which_  name did you use?"

"Briar, Briar Rose, it's the only one she has, isn't it?" Flynt was confused. What on earth was this girl prattling on about?

"Really,  _really?_  You had to call her  _that?_  Why didn't you just fuck her and call her your whore while you were at it, huh?"

"Raquelle, what the hell are you talking about?"

"Don't you… _ever_ …call me that again." Her hazel eyes a molten gold as she locked gazes with Flynt.

He rolled his eyes, trying to borrow patience from the ether. "What shall I call you then?"

"You call me Rocket, and you call her-" She jerked her head in the direction of the office, "Babydoll."

"Rocket and Babydoll? You have  _got_  to be kidding me. What are you supposed to be? Comic book heroes, show girls?"

"We're  _survivors._ " She needed him to understand this, especially now. "Do you have  _any_  idea how much you set her back by calling her Briar?"

"What do you mean?" Whatever this madness was, she seemed to know the rules that went with it, and he did promise himself to see this place the same way the patients did.

"How do you think we survive in this place, day after day, year after year? You think Lennox House is all sunshine and rainbows? Well, it isn't, it's Hell. It's Hell every time you open your eyes and look around you. The only escape we have, the only way we know of making hope, is by being someplace else."

The pieces were starting to fit together. "It's all inside your heads…"

_Thank you._  "Exactly. After awhile, you spend enough time in that other place, and Lennox House, all of  _this_ ," she looked away as her eyes roamed the hallways, "becomes the dream instead. What you know inside, that becomes your reality."

Understanding dawned. "And in that reality, her name is Babydoll."

"Good, you're starting to get it. When you called her by another name, you brought her back here, and I've seen a lot of girls come and go, but for whatever reason, she got the worst of it."

"What do you mean?"

She paused, wondering how much to tell him, but he'd come this far, and as unlikely an ally as he seemed before, he was starting to grow on her.

"Blue, the head orderly, he's not…he's not a nice man."

"I gathered."

"He does things to some of the girls, but Babydoll," her eyes dropped to the floor, her body sagging a little in the still tight grip of the orderly, "he did things to her that were unthinkable. I was there every day in the theater since she got here. Every time Doctor Gorski got her up on that stage…the things she would act out and say, the screaming, it was too much for even me, and I've been here for years."

"Why is he still here, if he's such a monster?"

"He's a smart monster, he makes sure Gorski's never around to catch him in the act, and the staff is in his pocket. He's the one pulling all the strings here, she just tries to make it bearable for us."

"But surely someone would believe you."

She shrugged, "You're the first person to care enough to ask, and who would take the word of a crazy person?"

He was silent for a moment, digesting this.

"Detective?"

"Yes?"

"Please stop him."

"I'll do my best, but I need you to tell me one thing in return."

"I knew there was a catch." A pause as she tried to figure out whether or not she could trust him. "What is it?"

"Where did your sister go?"

Rocket's laugh was explosive, startling even the orderly holding her. "Hah! Fat chance of me telling you  _that_."

"That's fine, I'll figure it out on my own," he turned to leave, "meanwhile, you can suffer through the Jones regime."

Rocket's triumphant smile wilted at that statement. "He's back?"

Now it was Flynt's turn to laugh, "Oh yes, I think him and the good doctor have a meeting scheduled with the director of this fine, upstanding facility in the next half hour or so." He took a few steps down the hallway, away from Rocket.

"Wait…Wait! You can't just leave!" She shouted at his retreating back.

He turned around and called back to her, still walking away, "Sure I can. You seem to need me a lot more than I need you."

She started struggling again, her mind wrestling with the options the same way her body fought with the orderly's. They'd come so far before, but that was with no one wise to their plans, Babydoll in full form and her sister working on the escape as well as Amber and Blondie.

Now it was just Rocket and a very broken Babydoll, and the five items from before wouldn't work this time. She needed help, she needed an ally. The detective was still walking away, his outline getting smaller, and the man had the audacity to whistle like a carefree schoolboy. Like this whole exchange didn't even matter!

"Detective!" She called out to his retreating form.

_Gotcha._  Flynt smiled to himself as he strolled back; glad he had called the headstrong kid's bluff. "Yes?"

"I need to tell you something…"

"And what would that be?" He pulled his leatherbound notepad out of his front pocket and flipped it open, ready to take notes on her sister's destination.

"I need to tell you…" She dropped her voice to almost a whisper, and he leaned in closer to catch it.

"I need to tell you to…"

He was going to get the answers he needed, and then he could close his case; send the Marshalls in to pick the girl up and move on to something else.

**"FUCK OFF!** " His world exploded into pain and bright colors as her head slammed into the bridge of his nose. He stepped back, pawing at his face. The orderly was absolutely terrified.

"Sir, are you all right? Oh my goodness, I am  _so_  sorry!" He tried to apologize while hanging onto Rocket, who was trying to get another shot at Flynt.

" **We don't** _ **need**_ **you, Detective! We'll do just fine on our own!** " Her smile was reckless and the detective quickly started back down the hall. These girls were a lost cause. **"Go back to your office! Forget what you saw here so you can sleep at night!** "

He turned the corner and Rocket's voice was drowned out by the howling of the other caged patients. He needed to get out of this place, the faster the better.

The detective almost slammed face first into the alarmed exit gate before he realized where he was.

"Hey!" He shouted at the guards. "Get me out of this place!" They looked at him, puzzled at his change of demeanor. "Hurry the hell up!"

A deep truth had been shaken in Flynt, cracking his iron certainty; the guards couldn't come fast enough.


	7. Chapter 7

The door swung open, interrupting Rocket's tirade. Vera Gorski strode out into the hallway, with Babydoll following quietly behind her.

Rocket sighed in relief as she tried to shrug off the grip of the guard. "Madame! Can you tell this…grunt," she shoved him as she bit off the word, "to keep his paws off the merchandise?"

Vera pinned the beefy thug with a withering glare, her eyes hard and shining against the soft smudges of eyeliner. "CJ, that is  _enough_. You are not to touch the girls unless it is required, understood?"

"Look lady, I'm under orders here…"

"Whose orders could those be? They would not be Blue's, correct?"

"As a matter of fact…" He squared his shoulders, his posture stubborn.

"Do you see him here?" She asked, looking around them curiously, as if Blue were hidden behind the peeling wallpaper.

"Well no, but-" He started backpedaling, realizing that his boss wouldn't be coming to back him up.

Madame Gorski pressed on, sensing a kink in the normally solid armor of the bodyguard. "Then I suggest that you make yourself...how do you say it? Ah, more help than harm, yes?"

CJ knew a lost cause when he saw one. He was slow sometimes, but he wasn't a fool. He stepped back, loosening his grip on Rocket's shoulders as he did and lightly shoving her forward.

"Fine, but this one's a handful, so you get to deal with her when all Hell breaks loose."

She nodded. "That is a risk I am willing to take." Fixing her attention on the two girls standing before her, she crooked a finger at them in a come hither gesture. Rocket found herself inexplicably drawn forward a step or two, with Babydoll keeping pace behind her.

Vera exhaled and then set her jaw, authority emanating from every line of her posture. "It is time that we stopped waiting for the dust to clear and instead choose our own future, and since I am tired of waiting, we must take action. Follow me."

She swirled about dramatically and strode towards the main theater, "It is necessary that some things return to normal," Rocket looked at her, puzzled, "and  _both_  of you are late for rehearsal."

The three women disappeared down the hallway, the eyes of the bodyguard watching from his post by the door.

"Just you wait…" He muttered. A dire promise, an idle threat, or simple clairvoyance?

* * *

Rocket's pace began to slow, not enough to be noticeable, but enough to increase the distance between herself and Madame Gorski.

"Psst!" She hissed under her breath, as she concentrated all her focus into her peripheral vision. She was pleased when her efforts paid off and she was greeted with the sight of liquid brown eyes, their sparkle of intelligence, so long absent, had returned. Babydoll was back.

"Hey," she responded, her voice barely audible, "what's up?"

"You are." Rocket tried to keep her expression neutral. It would do no good to walk down the halls obediently, all the while a ridiculous smile plastered on her face. She was elated, she'd been kicking herself the whole time for turning down that Detective's ridiculous offer, and now it seemed like things were finally going her way for a change. She shook her head and mentally corrected herself; things were finally going  _their_  way.

_When did_ _ **that**_ _happen?_  She spoke to her companion, sotto voce. "Hey Baby, how  _did_  you get better? You were gone again, into that bad place from before, and then Madame played some music and…"

"And what, Rocket?" Babydoll's whisper voiced her confusion. She didn't remember much from before the confrontation with CJ in the hallway. If she closed her eyes, vague images played on the back of them.

She was in the cedar forest, snow falling silently, the collapsed palace nowhere to be seen. She was looking for something.

It was important.

Her search became more frenetic, the frozen puffs of her breath rising around her in plumes.

It was a…a weapon?

Her dark eyes scanned the snow banks, but all that flashed back at her was frozen brightness.

Where was it?

She looked around her, the snow flurries obscuring her vision. Someone had told her where to look.

But who was it, and where?

A dark blotch stood out against the crisp whiteness of the snow, catching her eye. She took a step towards it, willing the blurred shaped to resolve, to show her what she needed to find.

The jagged edges took clarity, it was-

"BABYDOLL!"

Baby's head snapped up as she was wrenched from her reverie. "Yes, Madame, I'm sorry, what were you saying?"

Rocket peeked out from behind Madame Gorski's shoulder, concern written across her features.

"I was telling you and Rocket that things might not be all that they seem now, and you need to  _pay attention._ But that lesson seems to be lost on you, no?" She pursed her lips, waiting for a response.

Baby's eyes dropped to the floor, a gesture she was not known for, and its significance was not lost on her instructor. "No Madame, I'm sorry, it won't happen again."

Vera nodded in approval, appeased and, quite frankly, shocked that Babydoll's behavior was taking a turn towards obedience. She placed both palms on the grand double doors leading into the theater, pushing them inwards with a dramatic gesture. The portals opened wide, ushering in the sparkle and glamour of the old theater.

The footlights of the stage were newly polished, and shined like exotic treasures. The velvet curtains gleaming dully from behind them, the subtle sheen caught every glint of stage lighting. This was burlesque as it was meant to be, cabaret the old way.

Rocket and Babydoll stared in disbelief; they could barely recognize the stage. In such a short period, it had been transformed into something wholly different, almost magical. A low voice in both their ears interrupted their gawking.

" _This_  is how the dances are meant to be seen. The performance is meant to hint at what the audience cannot see, to excite. Blue did not understand this. Had he his way, you would all be clumsily gyrating on stage without a stitch of costuming." She shook her head sadly. "There is no skill in that, no mystery."

"Here, sit." She waved a hand at two unoccupied seats, Rocket and Babydoll noticed for the first time that other audience members were present. "The performers have been rehearsing hard." She looked away, as if in sudden remembrance. "Enjoy, I have something I must attend to." She turned and left quickly, leaving Rocket and Babydoll alone.

Rocket turned to Babydoll, about to speak to her. She paused when she saw the distracted look on her face, like she was thinking hard about something.

"Baby, what is it?"

"It's…" She squinted, trying to will the dim shadows and outlines to merge with faces from her memory. She almost had it, the names were on the tip of her tongue.

Then the realization hit her. "Oh my god, it's Blondie and Amber!"

Rocket was confused. "Yeah, so they didn't escape either, what's the big deal?"

Babydoll was about to yell at her for being so callous, until she realized that Rocket hadn't been there when it happened.

"They're dead, Rocket, Blue shot them."

Rocket swallowed hard, her eyes wide in disbelief. "No, he…he couldn't…" The words sounded hollow as she stammered out denials.

A noise came from the stage, and both their heads turned, trying to find where it came from.

They gasped as the lights went out, plunging the theater into darkness.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Fairly large update for you guys, hopefully more soon, you asked for more Rocket/Babydoll interaction, you gots it ;) Special thanks to my partner for helping me do research for this chapter XD
> 
> Sexuality Warning: Yes, this chapter contains graphically explicit consensual smut, enjoy. If you're underage, avert your eyes for basically anything in italics...also, why are you here in the first place?

"Look, Vera, I'm sorry, but my hands are tied."

Blue smiled wickedly from behind the director's shoulder, granted safety by 3 feet of solid walnut desktop.

The doctor seethed. "Director Lennox, this is unacceptable, this man challenges my authority at every turn, steals my identity by signing my name, and abuses the tenants of this institution. How can you allow him to stay? His actions are inexcusable."

"All you have at the moment are rumors and accusations, Vera. Come to me with hard evidence and then we can discuss Mr. Jones' performance." He spread his hands out on the desk, palms down, and gave her a look that meant he was going to have the last word on this matter. "Until then, the reality we're facing is that people aren't exactly crawling out of the woodwork and jumping at his position. This job is a feather in no one's cap."

Doctor Gorski's jaw muscles bunched as she fought to discard her initial response, which would have involved a lot of swearing. A deep breath as she composed herself and then spoke, "Am I to understand that not even one of the orderlies on staff would enjoy the rewards of a higher position and a pay increase?"

"Well, we were about to interview applicants when-"

"Ahem." Blue cleared his throat loudly from behind the director, interrupting his train of thought.

"When it became evident that no one on staff had the skills or experience that Mr. Jones possesses." He finished quickly, his eyes dropping to the whorls and grain of the desktop, refusing to meet the doctor's irate glare.

"I will train a new applicant  _myself_  if I have to, Director, but I will not spend a single day more dealing with that… _man's_ …" Her lip curled up into a sneer as she said the word, her distaste obvious, "scheming and insubordination."

"Vera, we can't afford a transition right now, not with all the negative publicity we've been experiencing lately, due to the escape."

She was losing her temper, her last nerve fraying at the edges. "She escaped because your precious lap dog was making her every waking moment into a nightmare she had no escape from!"

"There are those accusations again, Vera, unsubstantiated rumors at best. Be that as it may, your lobotomizing of that girl involved in the murder was not a popular decision either." He wagged a finger at her in mock chastisement.

Snap. Her vision tunneled down, focusing in on her enemies, the office and her surroundings grayed out.

"That was  **not** _ **my**_ **decision!** "

She vaguely realized the volume on her voice was increasing, but found that she couldn't really control it anymore, and didn't care to.

The director's jowls pulled down into a frown. "Vera, keep your voice down, we're in a formal meeting."

"Not anymore I'm not!" She turned and rushed the few steps to the door, her hand on the knob.

"Vera wait, we're not finished here!"

"I have no reason to be here, since you have already made your decision." She yanked the portal open and turned for a parting shot. "And my title,  _Bruce_ , is  _Doctor_  Gorski!  **Use it!** "

She slammed the office door, leaving the men in abrupt silence, the echoes of her footfalls muffled as she escaped to her refuge, the one place where she had power, where she could show others they had power.

Madame Gorski ran to the theater.

* * *

The stage lights went up, revealing the silhouette of a woman on stage, frozen in a pose that was both coy and seductive.

A low hum as the music kicked in, the beat a steady throbbing matched by the pulses of every audience member. Their blood singing in their veins as the tempo increased; the dancer on stage captivating as she started to move. Her hips swayed to the music, her body magnetic as she drew all eyes to her.

Rocket felt parched, and a little light headed. Madame Gorski was right, they  _had_  been rehearsing, and these subtle hints of sexuality were far more intoxicating than anything she had ever seen Blue approve of on stage.

She ran her tongue across dry lips, trying to even out her breathing as the movements on stage became a little more risqué. She noticed her hand start to move, watching in fascination as it crept forward, seemingly of its own accord.

It came to rest on Babydoll's knee, the initial contact surprising them both and causing Baby to look away from the performance on stage. Rocket found herself caught in that regard; trying to decipher a look she had only seen once before.

An instance so long ago, it seemed as if it belonged in another lifetime.

_Rocket had trouble sleeping after even the best of days, so tonight's insomnia was no surprise. She stared up at the ceiling, trying not to think of what difficult and possibly terrible things she might have to endure when she woke up in the morning._

_A familiar sound came to her, amplified by the tiled walls of their common bathroom. One of the girls was crying._

_A quick scan of the empty and occupied beds identified the bathroom's occupant, it was the new girl._

_She caught Sweetpea watching her, eyes flashing in warning: This isn't our problem, if the new girl wants to sob all night, that's her business; we have our own burdens to bear._

_Rocket, being Rocket, considered the warning for a half second._

_She was up and out of bed by the end of the next sniffle, heading towards the bathroom with a purposeful gait._

_She rounded the corner and was caught flat footed by the abject misery emanating from Babydoll, who was curled up against the chilled white tiles. She was trying her hardest to cry silently, and absolutely failing at it._

_It pulled on Rocket's heartstrings and threatened to break the whole thing in two. None of the other girls had made her feel this way before. She hated seeing suffering of any kind, but this…she would do anything if it would ease Babydoll's pain._

_Rocket put her back against the freezing cold wall and slid down until she was seated next to Baby. She bumped shoulders with the girl, trying to let her know she didn't have to face this alone._

_A choked sob._

" _Hey, what's wrong?" She inquired softly. "The food's not_ that _bad here, is it?"_

_Babydoll found a smile, despite her sadness, and hurriedly wiped the tears away, frustrated at herself for being so weak. She stopped when she realized Rocket's hand had cupped her own, still in the process of wiping her cheek._

" _Hey, it's okay to feel sad, or scared. This place_ is _scary and bad things_ can _happen, but tell me about what's bothering you and maybe we can figure out some way to fix it." Rocket noticed her fingers were still twined about Baby's hand; she gave an encouraging squeeze, glad when Babydoll let out a shaky, pent up sigh of relief and pressed her cheek into their joined palms._

_A tingle went up Rocket's arm as the downy softness of Babydoll's cheek combined with the sudden heat from her breath. She had to fight down her initial, less than noble instincts; she was here to comfort the girl, not come on to her! The war between mind and body was cut short as Babydoll started to speak._

" _I'm scared of how it's going to feel." Baby's voice was barely audible, and Rocket had to struggle to make out all the words._

" _How what's going to feel?" Rocket had an inkling of what was bothering her, but wanted to hear Babydoll voice her fears aloud, she hoped it would help her face them._

_Babydoll looked up at Rocket's face, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "Being with the High Roller, I don't…I don't want it to hurt…"_

" _Oh Baby, I'm sorry," Rocket met her eyes, staring into them as her thumb stroked across her cheekbone. Babydoll leaned into the contact, eyes closed as she forgot for a moment where she was, and what she was afraid of. "It always hurts, the first time…" Rocket bit down hard on her lip, trying to stop herself before she offered something she knew she shouldn't._

_Babydoll looked at her, hopeful, "But it won't be so terrible if he's gentle, right?"_

_Rocket wanted to lie to her so badly, to give this poor kid some sort of comforting words to hold onto until the deed was actually done and the harsh reality sank in. But Rocket knew the clients Blue liked to bring in, had seen the bruises on some of the girls after a particularly harsh session, and for whatever reason, this girl seemed to pry at all the chinks in Rocket's hard won emotional armor. She wanted to help her by telling her the truth. Babydoll deserved to know what was coming, so she could be ready._

_Rocket looked into those pleading eyes and prayed to any god listening that they could make her a better liar. Her prayers, as always, went unanswered._ Why me? Why do I gotta be the one to suck all the good out of the world?

_She locked eyes with Babydoll, willing herself not to flinch away when she told her the awful truth of the matter._  You look, dammit, you look into her eyes when you take away her last ray of hope. _"Babydoll, the High Roller, he's…he's not going to be gentle with you."_

_Babydoll's eyes widened, the fear creeping back into them. Rocket felt the reaction, as if someone had slid a cold dagger into her chest._

" _It's more likely that he's going to be the opposite, rough when he should be tender, cruel and uncaring when he should be loving. Anything you could wish for, hope for to make the experience more bearable, he'll disappoint you. That's the kind of client Blue brings here." She let the truth sink in, her spirits sinking after it in the silence that followed._

_Babydoll blinked, a single, silent tear spilling out and dropping onto the floor tile. She looked defeated, a prisoner without hope. Rocket's heart broke at the sight; she'd do anything to take that look out of her eyes. Even her sobbing was easier to deal with than this._

_Eventually, Babydoll spoke, her voice husky from crying, "Is there nothing I can do? Not one, single thing to make this more bearable?"_

" _There are two things, neither of them is perfect, and one is worse than the other."_

_Babydoll swallowed and looked back at Rocket, her gaze steady and unblinking. "What are they Rocket? I need you to tell me."_

_She hated suggesting it, but knew this is what happened to some of the younger girls that came in, faced with a future of never-ending abuse and thankless prostitution. "End it."_

" _What?"_

" _Kill yourself, we have access to cleaning supplies, drink enough bleach and nothing can save you." Rocket shuddered at the memory of finding a girl in the supply closet, the bottle hanging from her nerveless fingers._

" _No!" Babydoll spat the word out vehemently. "I'll never give them the satisfaction of breaking me without a fight." A glimmer of resistance came back into her eyes. Rocket was glad to see it; this one wouldn't go out quietly. "What's the second?"_

" _Take control of your own future."_

" _How?" Babydoll was confused. Why was Rocket being so cryptic?_

" _Give it up before the High Roller comes for you. Find someone, anyone, hope that they'll be everything you know he won't be, and then take that memory with you when the time comes."_

" _But won't they know? Isn't there something they check for?" This was starting to seem like a viable option, but there was still the matter of getting caught._

_And choosing someone._

" _Half the 'virgins' they have here don't have whatever it is they're looking for, and it generally goes over okay. Most of the guys are too horny and drunk to even realize what goes on down there. You ever gone horseback riding?"_

" _Yeah…Summer camp, a few years ago, why?"_

_Rocket shrugged nonchalantly, "Odds are you don't have it then, so you're screwed either way."_

" _You're kidding, right? That's not possible." Babydoll was starting to wonder if she was actually hearing the truth about these matters._

_Rocket giggled in response. "You should tell that to my sister."_

" _What does Sweetpea know about any of this?"_

" _My Mom took us to go see the doctor after we started our uh…'Lady Times' she called it. Sweetpea used to love going to our cousins' place out in the country during the summertime to ride their horses. I guess one of those horseback riding adventures got a little carried away or something, 'cause the next thing I know, I hear Mom screaming at Sweetpea about not running around with boys and giving away the milk for free. And I know for a fact that Sweetpea never went out with any boys, she tells me everything." Rocket nodded as she spoke, showing her conviction._

_Babydoll was starting to grasp what Rocket was explaining, as convoluted as it was. "So you're saying that no matter what I do, I'll never pass their inspection?"_

" _Basically."_

" _Great…" Babydoll sank back into the wall, mulling over her options._

_Rocket looked at her, some of the spirit had come back to the girl, but she still seemed like she had thunderclouds roiling in her soul. "Baby, I'm sorry I couldn't be more help, are you feeling any better?"_

" _A little." She looked back at Rocket. "Things don't seem quite as…bleak as they did before, thank you for giving me ways to get back at them."_

" _It's the least I could do, you seemed so miserable, I couldn't stand to see you hurting much longer." Rocket stood and stretched her legs out, cramped as they were from staying in one position for so long. She reached down to give Babydoll a hand up. "Here." A grunt as she pulled her up from the floor. "Is there anything else you wanted to talk about? We should be going to bed." She searched Babydoll's face for any remaining hint of fear._

" _There's one more thing I want to talk to you about." She looked up at Rocket, hoping her intent could be read, she hadn't done this before and wasn't very good at it._

" _Oh? What did you want to discuss?" Rocket tilted her head down, hazel eyes steady as she gazed evenly back at Babydoll. She had an inkling of what Baby was trying to say, but needed to hear her voice it aloud. Needed to hear that she wanted it._

_Babydoll leaned in closer, so close that Rocket had no problem hearing her answer, even though it was a bare whisper._

" _Taking control of my future." She closed the remaining distance, their lips brushing lightly as she kissed Rocket. Babydoll was completely unprepared for the velvety softness that came with kissing another woman, as well as the warm feeling that surged somewhere deep in her belly. She found herself going back for another without even pausing for breath, this was different than everyone in her life had ever told her kissing would be, this was the most intense sensation she had ever felt, it was also the easiest._

_Rocket was expecting the kiss, but she was not expecting it to blow her mind. This scared and confused virgin had kissed her more soundly than any number of seasoned women who had graced the halls here, now or before. Rocket's head swam; she desperately tried to remember to keep her instincts in check. She gripped her hands behind her back, squeezing them together until the nails dug into her palms. She tried to keep the image of the scared Babydoll she had walked in on an hour ago in her mind. It was the only thing keeping her from throwing Babydoll up against the wall and ravishing her with unkempt abandon._

_Finally, the two broke apart for air, chests heaving. Rocket looked at her, eyes gone a molten gold in the dim light. "You're sure about this?"_

_Baby could have fallen into those eyes and never looked back. "Very."_

_Rocket let her hands free and stepped forward, cupping Babydoll's cheek and running the pad of her thumb across her delicate bone structure. "Then I'll try my best," she said, her face serious, brows drawn together in concern, "to be everything you wanted." She leaned in and kissed her again, her other hand dropping to the small of Babydoll's back as she pulled her close, melding their bodies together._

_A small moan escaped from Babydoll, vibrating against Rocket's lips. She smiled into the kiss and began to move, leaving behind a trail of sensation as she kissed the line of Babydoll's jaw. Another noise as Rocket moved lower still, her teeth nipping at the soft flesh of Babydoll's throat. She was having trouble concentrating on anything except for Rocket's ministrations, the combination of lips and teeth sending shivers through her body, sensitizing her flesh._

_A sudden shock of chill made Baby gasp as Rocket's hand slid under her camisole._

" _Sorry," a murmured apology in her ear "s'cold in here…" Rocket continued on, rolling the fabric as she pulled the nightshirt up and over her head. The cool air hit Babydoll's skin, and she felt her whole body break out in goose bumps._

_Before Baby got used to the cold, she had to stifle a gasp as Rocket latched onto a nipple, suckling gently. The sudden surge of heat on her breast sent a throbbing pulse through her body, a pulse that ended somewhere between her legs._

_Speaking of legs, hers were feeling quite unsteady at the moment._

" _Rocket." It was hard to speak, harder still to think._

_Rocket was back up at her full height, instantly attentive. "Are you okay? I didn't hurt you did I?"_

" _No," Babydoll felt a smile tugging at her lips, "that_ definitely _didn't hurt. I'm just feeling a little…" She was having trouble finding words._

" _Lightheaded? Weak kneed?" Rocket suggested, trying to keep a rakish grin off her face._

" _Yeah, how did you know?"_

" _Lucky guess." A smirk. "Here, I think I have a solution, one thing though."_

" _What is it?"_

" _You need to take these off first." Rocket hooked a finger underneath the top of Baby's skirt, tugging the waistband of her underwear up so it was visible._

" _Just these?" She asked, a little perplexed by Rocket's plan._

" _Just those," Rocket nodded._

_A moment as Babydoll squiggled out of her undergarments. Rocket watched her step out of them as they fell to the floor in a puddle of white cotton._

_Baby looked back at her. "Now what?"_

" _Now…" Rocket trailed off as she grabbed Baby around the waist, lifting her up so she was sitting on the sink behind them, "we move."_

" _Oh." Babydoll felt Rocket move close as her weight settled onto the porcelain, the thin material of her skirt separating her from the chilly surface. Rocket's hips touched Baby's inner thighs and her legs curled around her, linking at the ankles as she found her balance._

" _Yeah, I figured if my hands were cold, you really didn't want to know what the sink felt like. Is this better?" Rocket kissed her again, with slow intensity, sucking on Babydoll's lower lip and biting it lightly._

" _Mmmm'sgreat." She mumbled, incoherent._

" _Good."_

_They continued the kiss as Rocket's hands wandered lower, slipping under the hem of Babydoll's skirt. She gripped the creamy flesh of her thighs, her nails raking across the surface. The sensation bordered the line between pleasure and pain. Rocket's hand slid closer to the junction between Babydoll's thighs, she ducked her head, and Baby could feel her breath, hot on her neck as she whispered into her ear._

" _This is about to get intense, so I need you to tell me if I'm hurting you and need to stop, okay?" She wound a forearm around Baby's lower back, stabilizing her against the narrow edge of the sink._

" _Okay." A throaty whisper turned into a moan as Rocket's palm cupped the very center of her being. She held her hand there, felt the throbbing underneath her fingertips as Babydoll's pulse spiked, her excitement contagious._

_Rocket dipped a finger against her, the surface slick with fluid. She dragged it upwards in a single, torturous stroke, just barely touching her clit. Babydoll moaned and rocked her hips forward, her body begging for more. Rocket obliged her, beginning a slow, even stroking along the length of her slit, circling her clit as she reached the top._

_Babydoll dropped her head down against Rocket's shoulder, their bodies fusing as they found a common rhythm. Small moans began to escape from Babydoll, increasing in volume as Rocket found a particularly sensitive spot._

" _Shh!" She warned. "You don't wanna wake up the whole dorm, do ya? Bite down on me if you need to."_

" _Ungh." A response that was half groan and half confirmation as Rocket felt the pressure of Baby's teeth sink into her shoulder. Rocket began to hear small whimpers, muffled though they were. Babydoll was nearing her climax._

_Rocket switched gears and entered her, thrusting deeply with two fingers. The shock of penetration sent Babydoll over the edge. Rocket felt her spasm around her captive hand, wincing as Baby bit down hard, nearly breaking her skin. The pain was as heady as the scent of Babydoll's arousal. Rocket had to remember that this was Baby's first time, and she should probably check in with her instead of continuing on into a mind bending sex spree._

" _Hey." Rocket panted, trying to get Baby's attention, who was still resting against her shoulder and seemed to be high on endorphins. "Are you alright?"_

" _Wha? Oh, yeah, I'm good, great even." Babydoll looked a bit dazed, but Rocket took the silly grin plastered on her face as a good sign._

" _Did you want to keep going? Should I stop?"_

_Babydoll looked back at her, eyes round in astonishment. "There's more?"_

_Rocket chuckled, deep and throaty. "Oh yeah, there's definitely more."_

Rocket raised an eyebrow at Babydoll and mouthed More? She hoped they were thinking the same thing. The fierce blush that colored Babydoll's cheeks proved her right. Rocket could see it even in the dim light of the theater. She wished they could find more time to be alone together, and set that as one of her priorities, right underneath escaping from Lennox House.

Out of the corner of her eye, Rocket saw the dancer, now bathed in spotlight, miss her footing and disappear into the darkness.

"HOLD!" A voice boomed out from somewhere in the audience as a man stood up and shouted at the rafters. "God damn it, Timothy! What the hell did I tell you about keeping your light trained on the dancers?"

Heads turned as a response rained down from above. "Then tell your dancers to keep their damned blocking and find their light!"

"Fine! STOP! Everybody take ten. Can I get house lights up, please?" The noise level increased as the lights went on and everyone started moving.

Babydoll grabbed Rocket's hand and yanked her up out of her seat, seeing her chance and taking it.

"Hey, where are we going?" Rocket demanded.

"We're going to see Amber and Blondie." She stated her mission as she dragged Rocket down the aisle way, zeroing in on her targets.

"But I thought you said they were de-" She lost her voice as two heads turned to stare back at them.

Rocket's hand slipped out of Babydoll's grasp, it fell, nerveless, at her side.

She couldn't believe what she was seeing.


	9. Chapter 9

Rocket was going to be sick. The things that stared back at them were  _not_  Amber and Blondie. Their normally olive toned skin was sallow, and seemed to hang off of their bones like poorly draped fabric. Their eyes, once dark, bright pools of liveliness, were glazed over with foggy cataracts. Rocket and Baby felt the pale stare tickling their skin, the unseeing gaze burning right though them.

A horrifying revulsion crept over both girls. Babydoll had  _seen_  it happen, smelled the acrid scent of the gunpowder as Blue took first Amber, and then Blondie, callously ending their lives because he couldn't stand the thought of anyone slipping through his fingers, free of his control. Rocket's jaw clenched, fighting back the nausea. She had held on to the slim hope that the bodies she found in the green room were a figment of Babydoll's fantasy, somehow linked to her abuse by the High Roller. Every time she closed her eyes she could see the faces of her long time friends staring back at her, stilled in death. Escape was now impossible, as the visions from her nightmares became her reality.

She blinked.

Two girls looked back at her from across the scarred table surface, where they were playing checkers.

"Hi, Raquelle, who's your friend?" Amber broke eye contact to jump one of Blondie's pieces.

"Aww, no fair!" Blondie crossed her arms and pouted until she realized there were more interesting things at the table. "Yeah Raquelle, who's the new girl?"

Rocket was starting to accept this new reality, strange though it was, where she at least got her friends back. "Blondie, you know Babydoll, and you  _know_  I hate that name."

Amber giggled. "Blondie? Finn's not  _blonde_ , Raquelle, why are you being so silly?"

Blondie reached over and playfully tapped Amber on the nose. "Maaaybe she's playing a game, Amy. Like secret agents! I am secret agent Blondie!" She pointed a thumb at her chest and puffed up her frame, trying to look much more imposing than her diminutive stature allowed. "Most feared fighting expert in the world! And Babydoll is…?" She looked over at Babydoll, expectantly waiting for her to fill in the blanks.

"Secret agent Babydoll is an escape artist…" She finished quietly, the words feeling empty after facing so many failures.

Amber wasn't in the mood to be playing; she wanted the gossip on the new girl instead. "But what's secret agent Babydoll's  _real_ name?" She waited for a response, impatiently drumming her long fingers against the table.

"Secret agent Babydoll's name is Briar, Briar Rose." She reached her hand across the table, waiting to grasp Amber's.

"That's a pretty name, I'm Amy." She stated, her hand meeting Baby's across the table.

Their fingers touched, and with a start, Babydoll remembered everything.

" _You think you're sooooo clever, don't you?" Blue stared at them accusingly, while all three girls struggled against the holds of their respective orderlies."Thought you had it all figured out and no one was the wiser." He leaned in close, inches from Amber's flashing eyes, which were hard as coal as she stared at him in loathing. "Well guess what? I'm the wiser." He smiled at her, with cold malice._

_She spat in his face. "Get away from me, you pig!"_

" _Just for that!" He screamed, wiping the spittle off his cheek, "You're going_ first!  _Get her in the chair!"_

" _Blue, Stop! This is madness! You've already won…" Doctor Gorski tried to intervene, putting herself between Blue and the girls._

" _Ver-a," he scolded her, his voice singsong, "you_ know _that all disciplinary action against violent patients is_ my _responsibility."_

" _But this? This is unnecessary! You've gone too far this time!" She pleaded, not caring that her position meant she shouldn't have had to._

" _No Vera, I just haven't gone far enough." He looked back at his minions. "Boys, she better be in the chair and prepped within the next thirty seconds." The sounds of grunting and shuffling filled the room as they hurried to obey._

_When the job was finished, Amber sat, bound in the chair, thick leather straps encased both her wrists and ankles. She was still struggling fiercely, shouting every obscenity she could think of at Blue until one of the orderlies shoved a rubber block into her mouth, silencing her. She settled on glaring, nostrils flared as she sucked in oxygen, her limbs taut as she pulled against the restraints._

_Blue stepped towards her, colored wires trailing across the floor, spilling out from a circlet in his hands. "And now, Madame, for your crown…" He mocked her as he secured the band of leather around her brow, making sure the electrodes made solid contact. Pleased with his handiwork, Blue addressed the orderly closest to the controls. "Frank!"_

" _Yes, Boss?" Frank was nervous, nothing good ever came of special attention. He tried his best to blend into the woodwork whenever possible, but sometimes the roving eye of the higher administration was impossible to avoid._

" _Set the session for two minutes and flip the switch." Blue's voice was flat, clinical._

" _But Boss that's-"_

" _I said do it!" He bellowed, foot tapping impatiently as he waited for his orders to be carried out._

_Frank opened his mouth, about to object again, but the look that Blue was sending cowed him into submission. With a sigh of defeat, Frank placed his hand on the worn bronze of the handle and pulled, activating the machine._

_It became so quiet in the room you could have heard a pin drop. The air seemed to take on a loaded, expectant quality, a heaviness._

_The silence was shattered by the awful noise of arcing electricity. It filled the ears of everyone present, making their skin shiver. This sound was innately wrong, instinctual nails on chalkboard. Fight or flight._

_Blondie chose fight._

" _Amber, Amber!" She cried out fiercely, struggling against the frozen bonds of her captor, who was struck stone still by the horror of what had just happened. "Stay with me Amber, don't go!"_

_The only other movement in the room came from the woman seated in the chair. Amber's limbs shook, her whole body convulsing into seizures as the current ran through her. Her jaw muscles bunched as she bit down into the rubber block, spittle foaming at the corners of her mouth. Her eyes rolled around madly, the whites flashing._

_All the while Blondie called out her name; begging her to stay, to remain whole, to fight the mind erasing static._

_The seconds ticked on, each moment dragging on into an eternity of revulsion, the conscience behind all those watching eyes a heavy burden._

_Blondie's cries were soon tainted with hopelessness, her pleas becoming softer and softer until they were inaudible. Despair settled over her like a filthy blanket, smothering her. All the while, Amber sat in front of her, twitching._

_Two minutes had passed, the machine chirped quietly as it cycled back to standby. Everyone was still, not wanting to break the tableau. If no one spoke, they could pretend it was all a horrible nightmare._

" _She's next." Blue raised an imperious finger and aimed it at Blondie. She was sobbing quietly, head bowed as she refused to look at the catatonic Amber. Half the orderlies in the room began to loosen the straps that had bound her to the chair. They carefully removed the band, wary not to touch the electrodes after seeing what they were capable of. It took two men to lift Amber out of the chair; her body, lax and boneless, was all dead weight._

_Blondie didn't even struggle as she was placed into the seat, she felt responsible for everything that had just happened. It was_ her _fault that Amber and Babydoll were here with her, and that she was here at all._

_She hadn't wanted to betray her friends, but the anxiety of getting caught, and being punished, was weighing her down, making her day to day life miserable. She had felt so much better after telling the plan to Doctor Gorski. Blondie hated keeping secrets, especially from the doctor, who always seemed to chase away all the fears that lived inside of her._

_Being in that office, she had felt light as a feather. All the dread that had hounded her before seemingly evaporated in the face of Doctor Gorski's calm reasoning. She was free, she had no secrets and everything was going to be alright. The happiness that began to bubble up inside of her was almost enough to make her skip out the office door as she turned the knob and playfully pulled it open. That feeling had vanished when she saw who was standing on the other side of the door, listening. Blue had grabbed her then, his fingers iron bands on her wrist as he dragged her down the hall, right to where he knew the other girls would be._

_Everyone except Sweet Pea, who was still off alone somewhere, mourning the loss of her sister._

_And now they were here, and it was all Blondie's fault._

_She felt the leather cinch tight against her wrists and ankles. The metal from the electrodes was still warm, reminding her of where it had just been, and what it had done._

_She looked up through her tears. Her eyes met Babydoll's and held there. She needed to make her understand that this wasn't intentional._

" _I'm_ so _sorry." Her quiet words filled the room, one last tear escaping before a rubber block was roughly jammed between her teeth and someone pulled the switch. The hissing snap of arcing electricity was all that could be heard._

"Hell-ooooooooooo? Operator to Briar, will you take the call?" Blondie waved her hand in front of Babydoll's face, who had been silently staring at her after touching Amber's hand.

Babydoll blinked and shook her head, trying to dispel the images she had been seeing. She looked back at Blondie. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Whoa! What's wrong with your eye?" Blondie was pointing and nudging Amber to take a closer look, suddenly intrigued and looking closely at Babydoll's face.

Babydoll shrank back instinctively as both girls barged into her personal space. "Hold on, you guys!"

Rocket, who had been watching the entire interaction, came to the rescue and instantly closed the space between Babydoll and the curious girls.

There wasn't a lot of space, however, and the two ended up practically nose to nose. Rocket was frenetic, desperately searching for indications that Baby could see. Babydoll tried her best to find a focal point. Rocket was so close that she was hardly anything more than a peach colored blur in front of her.

"Rocket…" She growled, trying to hold her temper. "I need to you back up at least a half foot or so…"

Rocket, realizing the situation she had gotten herself into, was instantly full of remorse and sheepishly backed up the requisite distance. "Is um…is that better?"

She was rewarded by the sight of Babydoll's dark gaze zeroing in and focusing on her face, something she'd only seen in the dream worlds.

Half of her gaze, anyway, her left eye remained loose and unfocused, tugged along into new positions by ghostly reflexes sent from her dominant eye. The result was that at first glance, nothing appeared to be wrong with Baby's eyes. It was only after she fixed her sight on something that the blind side would start to wander.

Rocket, who had feared the worst after she had first seen Babydoll's blindness, would take this mixed blessing. Some sight was better than a life of darkness.

"Oh my god, you can see!"

Babydoll was nonplussed, "Duh Rocket, I've been able to see since…" She trailed off, realizing that all the places she had been able to see had been in her mind. "Wait! I can see!" A fully fledged smile broke out then and she grabbed Rocket in a joyous embrace, the two hopping up and down like carefree school girls.

Blondie and Amber stared at them, heads cocked in morbid fascination.

"Finn!" Amber whispered to Blondie, "I think they're craaaaaazy, like, for real." She stuck a finger by her ear and wound it about in a circle.

Blondie's eyes went wide and she nodded, "Oh my gosh, Amy! I think you're right! Maybe we shouldn't talk to them anymore..."

The two tried to sidle away unnoticed, but their escape was interrupted by a loud commotion at the main doors.

"Rocket, Babydoll! I must speak with you at once!" Heads turned as Madame Gorski strode in, her presence filling the theater.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For everyone confused about the last chapter, I wanted to explore the relationship between first and second reality. I interpret the other realities as coping mechanisms for the first, ie, Babydoll cannot cope with being in a mental institution, so she's in a brothel instead (I'm still sorta on the fence about what is going on in first reality while they are fighting in the third, since it doesn't seem to have a 1 to 1 exchange rate). But, suffice to say, Amber (Amy:1st reality) and Blondie (Finn) are not dead (as I believe not even Blue could get away with killing patients outright), but underwent a huge dose of electroshock (ECT) and as a result lost their coping mechanisms (conscious access to other realities), and short term memories. So that flashback/realization was my first reality interpretation of the execution scene, as a short burst of gunfire was possibly easier for Babydoll to witness (and think about happening to her) than an extended dose of electrocution.

Rocket and Babydoll both rose up from their seats as Madame Gorski approached them. Rocket swallowed audibly, her throat bobbing as she tried to conquer her nerves. She hoped they weren't in trouble.

All eyes were on their Madame as she walked up to them, Vera raised an eyebrow at the attention.

"Leonard!"

The man who had shouted orders earlier was instantly up and out of his seat, his reply crisp and respectful.

"Yes, Madame?"

"Do these people have nothing better to do than stand around and gawk?" She waved a hand towards the watching audience in a plaintive gesture. Heads quickly turned away as the spectators realized they had been caught.

"No, Madame." He took a breath to shout out his next orders.  **"Everyone get to places, we start Act II in five minutes! This means You!"**  He turned his attention back to his mistress, "Is that to your satisfaction?"

" _Very._ " She injected a touch of charisma, batting her eyelashes and purring as she rolled her R's. Its effect was not lost on Leonard, who grinned bashfully in response before turning away and continuing to shout orders at his staff.

That issue addressed, Madame Gorski turned back to her original targets.

Babydoll was fidgeting, shifting slightly from foot to foot. Rocket's posture was stiffer than usual; it looked like she was trying to keep herself from shaking. Vera almost felt sorry for the pair, who looked like adolescents about to be punished for sneaking out.

She smiled to herself, knowing that the reality was the complete opposite of what they were expecting.

"Girls," she started, keeping her voice pitched warmly so that the two would relax, "what do you know about Blue?"

"I know he's-"

"I know he's-" Rocket and Babydoll looked at each other, startled by their identical chorus. Rocket conceded, nodding at Babydoll to go first.

"I know he's gone." Babydoll continued. "I remember him shouting when men came to take him away."

"I know he's coming back," Rocket replied, bitterly. A sharp intake of breath sounded from beside her and broke through her cynical gloom. Rocket looked up to see Babydoll lost in panic, her world coming apart at the seams.

"No!" Babydoll stepped forward towards Madame Gorski. She grabbed both her hands in desperation, hugging them to her chest as she looked up into Vera's face. She was searching for a refusal, some small hint of denial, anything that would save her from her greatest fear. "Tell me he's not, tell me he's gone!" She begged, pleading with her to make Rocket's words untrue.

Vera let out a sigh of regret and leaned forward, her forehead touching Babydoll's in a gesture of intimacy. Brown eyes met above their clasped hands, and the gazes held. "I am truly sorry, my child, but I cannot lie to you. Rocket speaks the truth."

She broke then; all the pieces Babydoll had been trying so very hard to keep together came crashing down around her. Vera hugged the girl to her as she sobbed, her hand rubbing her back as she whispered soothing words of comfort.

"Shhh." She whispered, ceasing her ministrations as the sniffles and convulsive whimpering died down. "We shall make it right, the three of us."

Babydoll looked up at her, wet lashes glittering against her smudged eyeliner, the spark of hope rekindled. "Madame, you can get us out of here? You can free us?"

Vera shook her head. Babydoll's shoulders sagged, her optimism fading. "I alone cannot free you." She grasped Babydoll's hand in her own, making sure she had her full attention. "Do you remember what I told you, the first time you danced?"

Babydoll's eyelids slid half closed as she relived the memory.

_The music beat against her, she felt it as a palpable thing. Felt it like the stares of a dozen curious onlookers. Everyone's eyes were on her, judging her. She was supposed to dance, supposed to impress them._

_It was too much. She looked around her, a doe in headlights, waiting for someone to save her._

_The staccato click of heels echoed throughout the dance studio as Madame Gorski walked up to her. She was their teacher, their buffer from Blue. If anyone was going to rescue Babydoll, wouldn't it be her? Couldn't she take her away from all of this?_

_No, Madame Gorski did not get her position by being soft._

" _If you do not dance, you have no purpose, and we don't keep things here that have no purpose." She looked down at her new charge, eyes full of censure. "You see your fight for survival, starts right now. You don't want to be judged? You won't be. You don't think you are strong enough? You are. You are afraid? Don't be."_

Babydoll's remembrance was interrupted by the sensation of something cold and metallic being pressed into her hand, its jagged edges biting into her palm. Madame Gorski leaned in close to give her final instructions, her whispered voice burring into Babydoll's ear.

"Beyond the High Roller's room, there is a door. Beyond that door, outside of this place, the world is waiting for you."

Babydoll opened her hand and looked down, she heard Rocket gasp as she realized what she held. In her palm, a master key sat, the light from the room winking softly off of its dull, bronzed surface.

"Go!" Vera commanded, pushing Babydoll back towards Rocket, who stumbled and almost lost her footing. "I cannot save you from Blue so long as you remain here. Leave, leave and be free. Keep to the back hallways and stay out of sight. He will come here first, I will distract him for as long as I am able. You have all the weapons you need." She reminded them. "Now fight!" A glassy sheen of tears welled up, threatening to spill out over her perfectly mascaraed lashes.

Rocket's head was still spinning from this new development, but she was never one to look a gift horse in the mouth. She grabbed Babydoll's hand as she recovered, taking a moment to look back gratefully at her teacher before tugging her companion out the door and into the halls.

Madame Gorski waved the two of them away, desperately hoping that they would succeed.

She turned her attention back to the stage, where Leonard was dutifully running the girls through their rehearsal.

She kept thinking about the double doors that sat behind her though, planning her course of attack. She was waiting for the moment when Blue would storm in.

The furious slamming of wood rang out, announcing a tyrant returning to his castle.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soo, no Rocket/Babydoll this chapter, but I did tell you that Vera had to buy them time, didn't I? I didn't think I would enjoy writing her character before I started this, but I have to admit she's certainly grown on me.

He caught her eye immediately as he stormed in, his false veneer of cheer barely covering the seething megalomaniac dying to break free. "Vera, my darling ladies!" He greeted them, a deceitful smile turning up the corners of his thin mustache. "It is good to know, that even in my brief absence, things are running as they should be and everyone is still working  _very_  hard at making  _me_  money."

The dancers on stage stopped what they had been doing and looked at him, fear evident on their faces.

"No, no, you're fine," he assured them, "Continue whatever it is you're doing, I just need to have a little chat with the…Director here." He grabbed Vera by the arm and roughly pulled her towards the back of the room, pitching his voice lower as he interrogated her.

"Where is she?" He hissed.

"Where is who, Blue? Sweetpea? She escaped, you should know this." Vera responded, playing the fool for as long as she could manage.

"Not…her…" He enunciated his words carefully.

"Oh," Vera continued on, oblivious, "you must be talking about Rocket then, she's been recovering well after the doctors finished with the-"

Her sentence was cut short as Blue's hand shot up closed about her windpipe. She swallowed nervously, her adam's apple grating against the bones in his hand. She remained silent after that display, waiting for his next move.

"I don't want  _them_ ," he explained, "I want,  _her_. I want  _my_  Babydoll."

"She's  _gone_  Blue, you sold her away yourself!" She reminded him, wondering if he was delusional.

"You're lying!" He screamed. "She's just not out there!" He waved his free hand toward the doors, indicating the hospital and the real world. "You're going to find her for me, find her and bring her to me." He saw the defiance light up in her eyes. "Or else I'll-"

"You'll what?" She whispered accusingly. "Kill me? And then how will you find her? You are nothing but a coward," she ground out, teeth clenched as she struggled under his grip, "and cowards have no power here."

His eyes widened as he checked the periphery, fearful that she was too confident to not have someone sneaking up on him from behind.

There was no one.

Secure in his position, he let loose a feral grin. "You're wrong. I do whatever I want to here. There's no one coming to rescue you, Vera, you're all…" his fingers cinched tighter around her throat as she began to choke, her vision darkening as a roaring filled her ears, "Mine…"

Vera blinked against the pain.

She was chiefly aware of three things: the first, that it was much colder here than in the theatre, the second, that her outfit was far heavier than it had just been, and, most importantly, she could breath.

She opened her eyes and looked around her.

It was late autumn in the forest. The trees had mostly shed their leaves but a few still remained, stalwart red gold flags contrasting against the stark blackness of the tree trunks. The air contained a hint of frost; she could see it in the misted clouds of her breath.

A twig snapped nearby and her head swiveled to spot the intruder, her hand automatically going to her belt, where her fingers closed around the hilt of a-

Vera looked down at her hand, confused by the sensation of smooth metal under her fingertips. In her palm lay the hilt to a  _szabla_  saber, favored blade of the fearsome  _Hassar_  soldiers of old, who were the heroes in the stories her grandfather told her when she was a little girl.

Metal plates winked up at her from beneath the saber's sheath. Her armor, a mix of articulating riveted plate and chainmail, was cut the same as the sequined dress she performed on stage with. Her opera gloves had been replaced with sturdy leather gauntlets, a delicate filigree pattern stamped into the surface.

Curious, but she didn't feel awkward in it, just slightly different.

Another noise erupted nearby, and this time she unsheathed the saber and advanced upon it. Shock filled her as she ended up face to face with an enormous stag, the points of his antlers worn bare from fighting.

The two warriors regarded each other for a moment, a mixture of respect and calculated aggression as they determined who could best the other.

The tableau was shattered as the stag broke eye contact and appeared to look past Vera. Something startled the mighty buck, scaring it enough to turn around and flee, the clop of hooves sounded as she watched it bound away, white tail bobbing like a surrender flag.

As the hoofbeats faded away, Vera suddenly realized that an intense, unnatural quiet had settled over the forest, not even birdsong could be heard.

A menacing growl echoed through the clearing, filling her veins with ice.

She turned around slowly, her boots crushing the leaf litter. A huge wolf stood before her, yellow fangs bared, ears pinned back as it snarled. It advanced on her, one massive paw in front of the other, the rumbling noise emitting from its throat growing louder with each step. It eyed her, its prey, brown eyes calculating and, seemingly, familiar.

Vera drew her sword up into the ready position, fingers clutching the hilt in a death grip underneath the hand guard, her desperately tight hold on the sword the only thing keeping her limbs from quaking in fear.

With a final snarl, the beast pounced, hindquarters bunching as it leapt. In an instant the huge, fur covered mass of muscle and sinew was airborne, jaws opened wide as a mouth full of daggers flew straight for her throat.

She could feel time slow as her senses went on high alert, the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, the faint breeze as it rifled through her hair. All the while she was tracking his movements, the apex of his jump, the precious few seconds of descent before he hit her, a wall of fanged death.

Some long dormant instinct arose, and she felt her muscles begin to move before she could even think about what she was doing.

Felt her legs shift into a deeper stance as she absorbed the full impact of the blow. Her saber skittered across the wolf's razored maw, deflecting the bite as the blade sunk into its heavy ruff. She pressed forward, trying with all her might to cut past the dense outer coat and into the thick muscles and arteries of the beast's neck.

Sensing her plan, the wolf shifted its attack, jerking its head to the side and evading the keen edge of the saber. Vera was caught by surprise. She let out a yell of pain and almost dropped her saber as she felt the jaws close on her arm, barbed points piercing the heavy leather of her gauntlets.

The wolf pressed its advantage, growling at her as it bit down harder, trying to neutralize her defenses long enough to get a shot at her exposed throat. It was so close it could almost taste the lifeblood as it surged under her skin.

Another moment and the pain was too much, Vera lost her grip on the hilt, watching it slip through the fingers of her sword arm. It fell, the fine honed edge twirling as it dropped to the ground.

She sensed more than saw the blade fall into her other hand, one last surge of desperation as she hooked her fist around and slammed the pommel into the beast's sensitive eye. It snorted in surprise and released her for a split second, which was all the time she needed.

Seizing the moment, she whipped the blade around and slashed it across the brute's throat. Not trusting things to chance, she followed up with another stroke of the saber, this time forcing the edge into the tough flesh. She bore down until slick rivulets of blood began to seep through the matted fur. Even then she held firm, straining her muscles as sweat beaded on her brow, condensing and trickling into her eye.

She blinked away the moisture.

And found her hands locked around Blue's stranglehold, her nails an odd shade of red as they dug into his flesh, blood beginning to ooze out beneath them.

His face was contorted into a snarl of agony and surprise as her fingers drilled deeper. The world was still dark at the edges, and she knew she was out of time. One hope left, a move that would either free her, or end her. She surged forward, the edge of his hand crushing into her windpipe as she slammed an elbow into the side of his head.

It worked.

She gasped as air filled her lungs. Blue was hunched over for the moment, holding his head in a mild daze. She breathed deeply; the feel of oxygen flooding into her system was heady, almost intoxicating.

It was intoxicating enough that she didn't think too hard about pressing her advantage, gripping both his shoulders to use for leverage as she smashed her knee into his groin. He dropped to the floor like the useless dead weight that he was.

She stood over him as he curled up into a ball on the floor, making piteous mewling noises and trying to protect his face, the backs of his hands covered in rusty smudges.

"You are a coward." She repeated. "I have no purpose for cowards," His hand snaked out to paw at the point of her shoe; she kicked it away in disgust, "and we do not keep things here that have…no purpose."

She turned and walked away, ears cocked for the verbal jab that would surely follow, her frame girded for the last desperate attack of a cornered wolf.

It never came.

She turned in surprise, seeing only the final swing of the main doors before they shut and remained motionless, an air of finality about them.

She blinked.

Dr. Vera Gorski stood before her patients and staff in the theater. She paused a moment, fishing a cleaning cloth out of a breast pocket and polishing the lenses of her glasses before seating them on the bridge of her nose.

_"I'm going to start your music now."_  She nodded at Leonard, an earnest looking student intern from the local university, to continue. He flipped the play switch on the tape reel, and the patient seated on stage took on a slightly dreamy look as the melody filled the room. _"You're safe. It's all safe. Now relax and just let go."_

_She hoped she had bought the girls enough time to escape._


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The music Rocket hears at the end of the chapter is Super8 & Tab's My Enemy, ft. vocals by Julie Thompson I figure the music should be foreshadowing enough for what sort of chapter comes next ;)

A loud crash echoed down the tiled hallways, startling them.

"Rocket! What was that?" Babydoll turned and started back towards the noise, only to have her movement halted by a sudden tug from behind, she looked back. Rocket's fingers were latched around her wrist, her grip desperately tight in an effort to stop her.

"Who do you  _think_  it is?" Rocket hissed, "What did Madame just tell us?" She reminded her, wrapping her fingers around Babydoll's balled fist, the pressure causing the key's irregularities to dig into her flesh.

"Blue…" The pain in Babydoll's hand reminded her of Vera's voice as she told her to leave, a last desperate attempt to keep them out of his reach.

"Right." Rocket exhaled as she said the word, a modicum of tension draining out of her frame. She was worried about Babydoll, her friend didn't seem as quick or decisive as the brilliant tactician she had come to love and trust over a scant few days. Baby had seemed so strong then, so certain. Rocket chalked the change up to the still healing injuries inflicted on her by the High Roller. She shook her head, dispelling the plague of doubts that remained. They would make it, Rocket knew, no matter her injuries, no matter the cost.

The pair started down the hall once more, the staccato clatter of their heels echoing all too loudly and marking their escape to anyone bothering to track them. Luckily, Vera was a woman of her word, and the house staff had all been alerted by the commotion or summoned through urgent whispers to see the power struggle still unfolding in the main theatre.

No one noticed the two lone girls traipsing down the halls, one fervently trying to remember which end of the hall contained the High Roller's suite. Usually girls were led there, and Rocket, being her eccentric self, had never had the pleasur- opportunity, of draining the pocket books of their most high profile clients. More often than not, after her routine was performed, she would be brought back to the green room to change and then work in the kitchens to prepare for the next day's meals.

Usually it was Sweetpea, self proclaimed star of the show, whose allure brought bids to all time highs, that required the use of this room.

Rocket suppressed a pang of jealousy. It wasn't that she wanted to be with that endless string of men, reeking of cigars and cognac, their necks dripping with gold chain. She just wanted to be better than her sister at  _something_ , anything.

She couldn't even run away from home without Sweetpea trying to outdo her.

And now Rocket was here, and needed to find the room, and she couldn't even do  _that_  by herself.

There were several large suites in the back. Rocket stared at the wood grain of the doors, trying to decipher one that looked more familiar out of the endless warren of seemingly identical rooms. She had only been able to find it the first time by following Babydoll's whimpered pleas for help.

Rocket blew out a frustrated sigh. "Babydoll, I don't know if…" She trailed off, suddenly realizing that her companion was no longer standing right beside her.

"Baby?" She ventured, her inquiry resonating down the hall.

"It's here, Rocket." A small voice sounded from the other end of the corridor. Rocket hurried to follow the source, there was something off about Babydoll's answer. Rocket couldn't quite put her finger on it. Usually her friend's words were wrought with such feeling and intensity that Babydoll's last response, so flat and detached, sent Fear's icy fingers curling about her heart. She had Baby's pale outline in sight now, and watched in despair as she placed a hand on the knob to the room and turned.

"Babydoll, wait!" At the sound of her voice, Babydoll broke her trancelike gaze with the portal and looked back at her. "There has to be another way, we just need to find it!" Rocket pleaded, trying to spare her friend the horror of reliving that night. A thousand gruesome images flashed in her mind as she remembered the monstrous scene that still lay beyond the door.

Vera's words abruptly sounded in her head, echoing her last thought.

_Beyond the High Roller's room, there is a door. Beyond that door, outside of this place, the world is waiting for you._

"No…" Rocket whispered, trying to deny her realization.

"You heard her, Rocket." Babydoll's voice was hoarse when she first spoke, like she was trying her best not to cry. "She didn't say 'next to' or 'across the hall from,' she said 'beyond.'" She reflexively squeezed her left hand, still holding the key. The sharp pain girded her for what she knew would come next. "There was only ever one way out of here, and no one said it would be easy." Babydoll placed her right hand on the worn bronze knob, its enormous size dwarfing her bloodless fingers, and turned.

The heavy wooden panel swung inwards, ungreased hinges groaning loudly in protest. A gust of stale air wafted out, greeting the pair with the putrid stink of sex, fear and old blood.

Rocket fought down the urge to retch, instead focusing her attention on Babydoll, whose panic stricken gaze was taking in the contents of the room before her.

The sheets were in tangled disarray, their crisp whiteness marred by the rusty stains smeared over the surface. They remained half draped over the bed, a testament to Babydoll's struggle and her eventual defeat as the High Roller's greater strength and fury overtook her.

One of the thick bedposts appeared darker than the others. Babydoll stepped forward and touched it. Rocket watched in morbid fascination, not knowing whether she should stop her or let her face this reality, as terrible as it was. Babydoll pulled her hand back, the palm colored a dark burgundy. She stared at her hand for a long moment, almost uncomprehending.

Then all the memories came crashing back, her mind's eye showing her the beating as it had played out. Each singular blow of her body against the unyielding wood made more visceral by the pain that lived under her skin every moment of the day.

The vivid recollections were too much; she needed to get out of here, out of this room, out of this filthy brothel-

Rocket saw the ripple of emotion cross Babydoll's face as her stare went from blank curiosity to dire remembrance. She saw the urge to leave, to go somewhere else. Rocket was afraid that if she went away this time, she wouldn't ever come back.

"Babydoll." She spoke the name aloud, an invocation of the warrior she fell in love with the moment they met.

Her companion's rapid breathing was all that could be heard in the resulting silence. Seconds ticked onward, and still no response.

"Babydoll!" She commanded, this time stepping forward and taking Baby's hands in her own, hoping to break the spell of remnant carnage. This time sable eyes darted up to meet hers, the look was wrong though, she wasn't connecting. She was still lost amongst her thoughts, ebony eyes flat and glassy.

"Baby…" A final plea as Rocket released one of her hands and instead brought it up to cup Babydoll's jawline, the pad of her thumb resting on the delicate arch of her cheek.

The tears came then, carving furrowed rivers as she closed the remaining distance between them, their foreheads touching as she stared into those dark infinite pools; pools that hid the trapped soul of the woman who owned her heart.

"Please." She begged, "Please don't leave me here, don't go where I can't follow."

She waited; her heart shattering when that endless stare endured.

Having nothing left to lose, she leaned forward and kissed her. Babydoll's soft lips, so lively the last time Rocket had felt them, remained still. "You can't go," she continued, hugging the girl close to her, "I haven't even gotten to tell you that I lo-"

"Well, well, well." Blue interrupted, filling the room with his presence. "It seems, Rocket, that you were about to take something that belongs to me." He sauntered forward, pinning her with his dark, menacing stare. "Something I hold… _very_ …dear."

"She's not yours, you pig!" Rocket spat, spinning around and putting her body between Blue and Babydoll. She was fiercely wracking her brain, trying to find a way out. Once they were free, she would figure out a way to get to Babydoll, no matter how long or difficult the path. Vera's words resounded in her head.

_Beyond the High Roller's room, there is a door._

"Oh, but that's where you're wrong, my dear."

Rocket's hopes perked up when she heard that line. Blue had been away from his ministry for too long. He was dying to reassert his authority, and his most efficient technique of doing so was by giving everyone a little speech.  _C'mon Rocket! Think, THINK! There's got to be a door around her somewhere…_

"Am I, Blue?" She goaded him, "I thought Vera owned this place now."

"See, that, _that_ , is where everyone is mistaken." He countered, slowly stepping towards her as he began to speak. "You see everyone seems to be a bit out of the loop these days. I go away for a little while, a short…business trip…shall we say? And when I come back, everyone's forgotten that this is my game we are playing here, I make the rules, and I can change them."

Rocket's eyes frantically scanned the room, looking for anything that could possibly be construed as a doorway. Her search paused briefly as she saw what looked to be a closet door, tucked way back in a corner behind the massive bed.  _But it's a closet! How can a closet help us?_

"So are you?" She asked.

"Am I what?"

"Are you going to change them?"

"You bet I will," He moved forward again. Rocket retreated, keeping her arms bent back on either side of Babydoll and blindly leading her around the room, anywhere as long as it was in the opposite direction of Blue. "And I'm going to start right now."

"So, dictator, what's your first edict?" She needed to keep him off balance, annoy him just enough to keep him talking, but not enraged enough to rush her. Rocket began to angle her retreat towards the closet door.

"My first edict," He announced, enjoying the taste of the word, "is that I get to play with  _all_  of my toys."

"Is that so?" Rocket wondered aloud. "And what happens when your toys are broken, hmmm?"

"What are you talking about?" He asked, genuinely confused.

"She's gone, Blue!" Rocket cackled. "Didn't you know? You counted the money yourself."

"You're lying!" He accused.

"No, I'm not. You lined your pockets well, but the money wasn't enough, was it? It wasn't enough for you to conquer that spark she had and make it your own. You're too late, did you want to see for yourself, see that endless blank stare? Here! I'll show you." Rocket turned to grab Babydoll, until a slight sound made her heart stop.

"Rocket?"

_What have I done?_

"I knew it!" Blue crowed. "You lying bitch!"

The first thing Babydoll saw was a fiery orange blur as Rocket tackled Blue, trying to take him down. The two impacted with a collective grunt, but Blue quickly overpowered Rocket's petite frame. After a few moments he had pinned her arms back far enough that he could get a clear shot at her ribs. He raised a knee up and slammed it straight into her still healing knife wound.

"Rocket!" Babydoll screamed, a warning or a frightened exclamation, no one knew.

Rocket let out a cry as she dropped to the floor, her world exploding into pain. She took shallow breaths, each exhalation an instance of pure torture. A few of the stitches had popped open and she felt a warm and all too familiar wetness glaze her side.

"And that," Blue stated, clapping his hands together and rubbing them briskly, "is why we play by my rules." He stepped towards Babydoll, resting his hand on her cheek the same way Rocket had just a few minutes prior.

Babydoll slapped him, hard as she could. His head turned to one side as he embraced the blow, tracing the fingertips of his free hand over the reddened and newly heated flesh.

"There's that fight." He rumbled, before grabbing both her wrists in his hand and pinning her arms above her head. He pushed her back towards the wall. "Now it's time to play," he promised. Babydoll winced as she touched the wall, some hard protrusion digging into her lower back. She gasped when she realized the shape behind her was a doorknob. Blue had backed her into the door. They were exactly where they needed to be, and helpless to escape.

"Rocket?" She called, knowing she had precious few seconds left.

From a curled heap on the floor, Rocket knew what she was asking, knew what they needed to do.

Somewhere, far off, she heard the soft strains of music. She wondered if it was coming from the theatre.

"Baby, I can't, don't you remember?" She hurt, everything hurt.

"What's this?" Blue derided them, "You want some sort of threeway action?"

"Rocket," she repeated. "I need you."

Rocket raised herself up from the floor. Hazel and mahogany met from across the room.

"For you." Rocket promised, "Anything."

Babydoll's starry eyed gaze was the last thing Rocket saw before darkness enveloped her.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The creatures at the end are based off of the monsters from Princess Mononoke, if you have a hard time visualizing them.

Rocket opened her eyes gingerly against the wind driven snow as it gusted around her. This wasn't a place she knew.

She took in her surroundings, a blinding white blanket draped over the skeletal remains of dormant cedar trees. Everywhere her eyes roamed, she was met with the snow's dazzling brilliance. It was almost painful to look at.

"Babydoll?" She called, stepping forward and hearing the crunch of her thigh high boots as they compacted the newly fallen snow. "Baby?"

"Over here!" A voice filtered softly through the dense tree canopy. Rocket continued her journey, wrapping her arms around herself in reflex against the harsh and sudden chill. She pressed stolidly forward, each step sinking into the soft ground covering. She was glad that this place was new and unknown. She didn't think she could face the torturous heat of those fires again.

Eventually the dense tree line gave way and she found herself facing Babydoll in a small clearing. Her partner appeared to be searching for something.

"What are you looking for?" She inquired.

"I don't know." Babydoll admitted sheepishly. "I'm supposed to find something here, but I can't remember what it was." She kicked at the snow in frustration, the pointed toe of her shoe flinging small clumps of ice through the air. "I can't even remember where I was supposed to look for it."

"Well, since we don't appear to be armed with shovels," Rocket ventured, indicating the various arsenals they had strapped to their bodies, "I guess we're looking for some sort of structure or building, right?"

"You do have a point." She conceded, letting Rocket's attempt at humor slightly brighten her mood. "We should probably start moving then; anything that's not snow should just jump out at us, right?"

"Right." Rocket agreed, a cheerful grin breaking out. She hadn't ever been one on one with Babydoll like this before, where both of them were in top form, the scariest things roaming their environment.

_It's actually kind of nice._  She thought to herself.  _Almost like a date._

She startled herself out of the reverie.  _Did I really just think that?_  Rocket mentally slapped herself.  _Pull it together, girl! You're on a mission! Even if you don't know what it is yet!_

Rocket set her jaw with grim determination and looked over at Babydoll, whose eyes nervously skittered away, staring at anything and everything except for Rocket, her cheeks slightly flushed. She had been using Rocket's divided attention as an excuse to check out her companion.

Rocket was confused by her friend's sudden change in demeanor. What on earth would make Babydoll nervous in this reality?

They continued on, neither one speaking, the only sound was their heels as they crunched in the thick snow.

"Hey, Baby?" She asked, breaking the slightly awkward silence.

"Yes, Rocket?" Babydoll winced, knowing that Rocket had caught her staring and was about to call her on it.

"Why did you come back?" The question hit Babydoll from a wholly opposite direction and caught her flatfooted.

"Because you asked." She answered, truthfully. "I was back in that dark place I went to after the High Roller came for me. Sometimes the blackness is easier to bear than the memories…"

"Oh." Rocket absorbed this answer, crestfallen. "I'm sorry then." She looked back at Babydoll, hurt darkening her eyes. "I didn't mean to drag you back into all of this."

Babydoll looked back at her friend, who was trying her best to hide her disappointment and put on a tough face.  _Oh, Rocket…_ Baby wasn't fooled for a second. "Hey," she called, distracting Rocket from her self-deprecating thoughts. "Was it true, what you said?"

Rocket replayed her actions in her head, thinking back to the most recent thing. "Yes," she replied honestly, "I would do anything if you asked me to. It's why I'm here." She paused a moment. "But I guess neither of us would be here if I hadn't called you back…"

"Rocket, stop." Babydoll demanded, more harshly than she had intended. "I didn't come back because you couldn't follow me."

"Then why?" Rocket asked, bewildered.

"What you said  _after_  that. Was  _that_ true?" Baby clarified, stressing her words carefully.

Rocket thought hard, and felt her heart drop when she remembered the last words she spoke before Blue walked in. "I…I didn't think you heard that."

"Well I did." Babydoll stated. "So," she asked again, "was it true?"

"…yes…" Rocket mumbled quietly, head drooped in humiliation as she stopped walking altogether. She had misread the situation entirely. Baby didn't feel the same way at all.

"Good." Babydoll's response echoed in Rocket's ears as she threaded a finger through the ring at her throat and tugged, pulling her close enough for what she needed to do.

Rocket's surprise at the motion skyrocketed when Babydoll's lips met hers in a searing kiss. All her doubts were burned to ash by molten fire and surety of Babydoll's unbridled passion. Rocket felt the last of her fears fall away as she let herself fall headlong into this feeling. A feeling she had been desperately trying to keep in check for the past few weeks. She returned the kiss with fervor, feeling the heat build up between them, the ground shake beneath their feet-

"Wait." Rocket broke away, "Did you feel that?"

"Absolutely." Babydoll purred, flushed and breathless.

"Not  _that_." Rocket insisted, her cheeks coloring, "I definitely felt  _that_. Did you feel the ground just shake?"

"Oh!" Baby exclaimed, "I um…I thought that was the weak kneed thing happening again."

"Thanks for the compliment." Rocket grinned, "But I don't think I could ever actually  _make_  the earth move for you…"

"Oh…" Babydoll responded, sounding just a touch disappointed.

Before Rocket could defend her seduction skills, the earth shook once more, setting the pair into attack mode.

"Okay, I definitely felt it this time." Babydoll agreed. "It feels like something big is coming." She started to run full tilt up the nearest snow bank. "C'mon, Rocket!"

Rocket unholstered her machine gun and charged up the hill after her, the frozen clouds of Babydoll's breath obscuring her vision as she ran.

They crested the top of the rise and took in the scene before them. To one side, the mouth of a cave ripped through the snow like a blackened maw. Its seemingly familiar outline set alarm bells off inside Babydoll's head.

"Rocket, that's it!" She pointed, her voice excited. "That's what we're supposed to be looking for."

"Right." Rocket agreed. "So we go in the cave, grab whatever the thing is we're supposed to find but don't know what it is yet, and get out."

"Yes." Baby confirmed.

"What about those guys?" Rocket asked, nodding towards the opposite end of the gully.

A huge army was coming, an army of dark…things…

Babydoll squinted against the brightness of the snow, trying to see what they were up against.

The creatures were almost humanoid, almost. They appeared to be made of darkness itself, if darkness were a writhing, coiling mass of smooth worms and tentacles. Two fiery red eyes were set near the front of each monster, who propelled themselves forward on elongated arms. Instead of raising their arms and moving forward in a stepping motion, the creatures sucked the too long appendages into their body as they advanced, growing another pair and setting them to touch the ground a few feet in front of them. The resulting effect was a mass ripple of motion along the front lines, and the army appeared to move as one massive organism.

Rocket cringed as she noticed what happened to the ground after the creatures had touched it. The snow evaporated instantly, leaving behind scorched barren earth. The swath of destruction behind them indicated that they had been on the move like this for some time, and had no intention of stopping.

They had only a few minutes left before the dark army covered the field and blocked their access to the cave.

The faint music faded in again, its tempo pulsing in conjunction with their newly increased heart rates.

"Rocket?" Babydoll looked at her companion, knowing they were up against near impossible odds.

"Yes?" She responded, glad that if she was going to die on this suicide mission, at least Babydoll knew how she felt.

"Run!"

The pair bolted down the hill, two lone warriors against an innumerable army.


	14. Chapter 14

The still falling snow swirled around them as they ran. Rocket's ears were filled with only the rhythmic crunching of their boots and the ragged edges of their breathing. For a massive army, those creatures were certainly quiet.

Babydoll's fighting instinct was up as she kept track of the advancing mob in her periphery. Seeing her foes sent an adrenaline surge coursing through her, the blood singing in her veins and roaring in her ears. For the first time since the surgery, she felt in control of the world, master of her destiny. Her feet pelted the earth as she sped up, every step bringing her closer the item that she knew, deep down, would finally be the key to her freedom.

Another dark creature appeared in the corner of her eye, but this one was capped by a thatch of fiery orange hair. Rocket had caught up with her increased pace. Baby was glad that she was here. Rocket had proven her loyalty time and time again, seeking her out from a place she thought no one could ever find.

_One day I will find you, and I'll finally know what I've been searching for._

But find it, Rocket had, and now they were here, on the cusp of everything, their goal almost within reach, their freedom almost won.

Their freedom. Together.

_One day you will see me, like no others looked upon this face before._

She looked over at Rocket, whose face was a study in seriousness as she steadily loped forward at her side. Rocket's eyes caught her glance, and the façade cracked. She grinned at Babydoll. The excitement of the mission and the impending fight, as well as the sweet undercurrent of newfound emotions, was contagious, Babydoll felt a tug on her lips as she responded in kind.

The mouth of the cave began to loom larger as they neared their destination, but they weren't moving fast enough. For every step forward Rocket and Babydoll took, the advancing tide of darkness moved forward as well, the unsettling, eerie silence clinging to the mob all the while.

"Rocket!" Babydoll called out, causing her companion to turn, "We're not gonna make it without a fight." She stated, tilting her head toward the creeping line.

Rocket's face took on a cast of grim determination, as she nodded, confirming. "We'll fight them, all right, and we'll still make it."

_Dreams, beneath the surface there's a world that no one sees._

Seeing the belief shining out of those hazel eyes was exactly the thing Babydoll needed. This was their world, after all, and damned if she was going to let this army stop her when no one else could.

_A hideaway where I've got everything I need._

The white gap of snow between the coal dark mouth of the cave and the shade of the army was almost gone, Babydoll made her decision.

"Rocket, weapons hot!" She called, drawing the katana from its scabbard and unholstering her pistol, the charms tinkling against her skin in a familiar pattern. She felt the sandpaper ray skin bind against the bandages at her palm as she gripped the blade, the steel singing in contrast to the utter quiet of her foes.

"On it!" Rocket swung the machine gun out from across her back, saving her other weapons for when they actually went hand to hand. "Crowd control?" She queried.

Babydoll nodded. "Go for the eyes." She instructed, not knowing the nature of these creatures, but attacking that point had served her well thus far, in everything from steam powered zombie soldiers, to dragons and cyborgs.

The sharp bark of gunfire and a muzzle flash was Rocket's response.

One set of glittering eyes blinked out in a sea of rubies. Both women paused a moment to see the effects. The sheltering pile of tube worms pulled back and embedded themselves further within the mass, revealing the exposed shell of something that could have once been a man. Its death's head grin still cocked at them as the lifeless corpse fell to the ground. The sunken eye sockets were dark now, leeched of their unearthly fire, but they still stared onwards.

An involuntary shudder of disgust rippled through both girls at the sight. It was cut short when the dark seething mound rolled over the stilled corpse, no longer recruiting for the fight, but crushing it into the barren earth like so much refuse.

"Rocket." Babydoll called out, her voice quavering slightly. "There's too many, we can't both make it."

"NO!" She shouted back, stubborn as always, firing more shots into the advancing tide. "We both make it, or no one does, I'm not leaving you again."

Rocket turned away, unloading her clip into the endless torrent of targets, watching with satisfaction when each one fell, one less in an infinite legion.

"Rocket…" Babydoll called again. A single tear escaped as Rocket tried to ignore her, pulling the trigger instead of responding.

A hollow click was the gun's only response, its ammunition spent. Through with denial, Rocket moved on to bargaining.

"You go, I can-" She faltered, loosing her grip on the now spent UMP45 and letting it swing at her side. She knew her bayonet and flintlock were no match for the awesome power of the blade nestled within her friend's grasp.

A sigh as Babydoll holstered her pistol and stepped forward. No words passed as she looked up at Rocket, another motion as she reached up and cupped the side of her jaw.

Rocket looked down at her, eyes gleaming with tears she refused to let fall. She tried to speak, but her voice caught in her throat. Babydoll shushed her by pressing a thumb against her lips. Rocket leaned into the gentle contact, wishing she could safeguard Babydoll from the consequences of heroism, that someone else could fill her role as the lone warrior against the unstoppable army.

Babydoll didn't need to hear the words; everything Rocket needed to convey was contained in a look. Another moment and Babydoll lessened the distance between them, so close they were exchanging breath. Their eyes locked, offering promises they might not keep. Then the final barrier vanished as they committed an action they had no time for, a kiss as inescapable as the oncoming army.

Time stilled as they lost themselves in one another. For Rocket, the world of snow and midnight foes vanished, her world compressing down to the warmth and contact imparted by Babydoll. Rocket pulled her closer, their bodies fitting together as she continued the kiss, her desperate urgency made plain through the claim of her lips. Babydoll responded, returning her fierceness and increasing the intensity still more before she managed, through sheer willpower, to break away.

As Babydoll pulled back, Rocket looked at her, eyes bright and courageous, cheeks flushed pink with warmth that eclipsed the driven snow. She was beautiful.

_You'll shine a light and I'll be brave enough to breathe_

"We're out of time." She spoke to Rocket, trying to convince the headstrong woman of what she already knew but didn't want to accept. "I need you to go to the cave and find the item. You can do this, Rocket, I know you can. I'll hold them here for-"A pause as she looked at the surging sea of ink, "For awhile."

Rocket nodded, her chest tight with roiling emotions she held back. She dropped the spent machine gun down into the snow, a hiss of steel as she drew her bayonet and pistol.

_To believe, to be free._

"I'll come back for you." A pause as she looked at her, trying to burn every last feature into memory. "I promise."

No more words passed as Babydoll turned, firing the first of her rounds between two glittering targets, satisfaction coursing through her as they eyes blinked out and another pale corpse fell to the ground.


	15. Chapter 15

Rocket heard the sharp recoil of Babydoll's pistol as she blasted round after round into their nemesis. She felt the winds shift as the brunt of the force turned towards Baby's hostile attack; a heaving thud sounded as the forces split to surround the platinum heroine. Babydoll was drawing their attention, but not enough of it, a small but significant force still stood between Rocket and the opening to the cave mouth.

Time slowed and the moments ticked by, one at a time, for Rocket as the things crept towards her, their misshapen limbs dragging them painstakingly forward. She felt the sweat on her brow, warm despite the crisp, newly fallen snow. The molded hilt of the bayonet felt good in her grip, felt right. She spun the flintlock in her right hand, wrapping her fingers around the freezing gunmetal. She would save the shot for as long as she could.

Another breath and the first of the monsters attacked, pointing what could be mistaken for an arm at her and sending it in for the kill. The slender column of tendrils shot towards her, aimed straight for her throat. A flicker of motion as her left hand came up to block the attack, the keen edge of the blade amputating the limb. A thin shriek sounded, and Rocket wasn't certain if she heard it aloud or if it resounded from inside her skull. The appendage fell to the snow, nothing more than a handful of worms, steam coiling up around them as they seared the earth.

Rocket's satisfaction that the thing could be hurt was short lived; however, as she witnessed the worms, seemingly of their own, independent, accord, start to crawl back towards their severed owner.

Mild panic set in as she realized that there was no way of winning this fight, not with the weapons she currently possessed. Her eyes flicked to the cave opening, the Wise Man wasn't here to give them guidance, but they were never put into a world without the proper armament, right? The answer must lie in the cave, and all Rocket had to do was get to it.

Just get past these few enemies, and then…

"You'll never make it." Sweetpea's voice, plain as day, sounded behind her, Rocket whirled around in confusion, surprised and delighted that her big sister was here to help them.

No one stood behind her, other than the creatures, and further back…

"NO!" Rocket took two steps forward before she realized she had a mission to complete. The space where Babydoll had stood was now nothing but a patch of writhing blackness. "She…she can't be gone, she was  _just_ there. She said…she said she'd hold them off while I-"

"While you what, went to the cave, found the new item and then came back to save the day? All by yourself?" Sweetpea's voice again, but this time she had picked the right direction. The mass of tendrils rose up, coalescing into a solid column; their dark, glossy coating began to shimmer, taking on the reflection of the snow around them, lightening until Rocket recognized a very distinct shade of tanned skin and auburn hair. "I don't know why she thought you could do it alone, you've already failed her."

"Sweetpea…" She breathed, sheathing her weapons as her eyes beheld her kindred.

"Rocket, Rocket, Rocket." Sweetpea chastised her, shaking her head as she stepped towards her. "Did you really think you could do this without me, that you could finish  _anything_  on your own?"

The words sank her formerly high spirits. Instead of the warrior she knew herself to be, suddenly Rocket felt like the tagalong kid sister who didn't belong.

"I did lots of things without you!" She snapped, feeling childish but unable to stop herself.

"Like what?" Sweetpea's tone was colored with scorn.

Her sister's disbelief stung, Sweetpea's approval was one of Rocket's major weaknesses, something she fought tooth and nail not to want but, in secret, desired more than anything.

Almost anything...

"I found Babydoll!" She shot back. "I found her when no one else could, when you abandoned her!" Accusatory now, Rocket turned the tables. "I did it then, and I can do it again!" She turned to leave, but was caught fast when she felt a touch encircle her wrist.

"You're not going into that cave, Rocket." Sweetpea smiled as she spoke to soften the command. "I've found another way out, we can go home," she promised, "the both of us. You can even tell Mom you love her yourself."

A pause as Rocket considered this.

"Isn't that what we were waiting for?" Sweetpea questioned. "What we dreamed about, for years?"

"But Babydoll-" Rocket started, she was confused, and a little apprehensive.

"But nothing, Rocket!" She interrupted loudly, her anger and frustration evident. "She doesn't know what we went through. She wasn't trapped there, day after day, until the days turned into months, and then years. She was only there for what? Five days, two weeks? That's nothing, Nothing compared to what we had to endure!" Sweetpea was shaking as she finished, and had to visibly take a breath as she collected herself.

"She doesn't matter now," Sweetpea continued, "nothing matters except for you and me. Now c'mon, we have to go, we're running out of time." She turned and began to walk back towards the forest, keeping a firm grip on her stubborn sibling.

Rocket still wasn't ready to make her decision, but her attention was split as she felt a sharp tug on her wrist, which caused her to look down at her hand.

A dark, ink like stain had started to spread into her skin where Sweetpea had grabbed her. The places where her flesh had darkened tingled slightly, the stain felt cold, it felt wrong.

"Sw-Sweetpea," she stammered, trying to keep the panic down.

"What?" Sweetpea turned around and rolled her eyes, exasperated at her ever difficult sister's antics.

The annoyed facial expression, and the eye roll, were certified, genuine Sweetpea, it was the color of those eyes that set off Rocket's internal alarm. "Let go of me." She commanded, her voice quiet but serious.

"C'mon, stop being foolish." Her sister ordered, staring at her with those eyes; Eyes that were normally such a warm, inviting honey brown. They were now a solid black color, a dark, shadowy sable that seemed to be at once flat, but also contain the endless depths of an abyss.

The same abyss that had just consumed her beloved.

"What ARE you?" Rocket asked, pulling back on her captive wrist as her other hand strayed towards the hilt of her bayonet.

"What do you mean what AM I?" Sweetpea looked at her like she was crazed. "I'm your sister, flesh and blood, just like you. Now c'mon, we have to get going." Another tug.

"No!" Rocket yelled, "I'm not leaving without going into that cave, and I'm definitely not leaving without her. I'm gonna do what I wanna do."

Sweetpea's expression turned cold. "And when has that served us  _any_  good Rocket? Was it good when we were left without a home? Did it feel great when the cops found us with that guy's mutilated body and we were locked away? Did getting stabbed with a kitchen knife keep us safe?"

"Maybe not," Rocket admitted, faced with all her failures and mistakes, "but I'm not doing this for us, I'm doing this…" A heartbeat as she felt the hardened steel slip out of the sheath at her hip. "For  _me."_

The blade was a bright blur as she whipped it across her body. She watched the razor edge come in contact with the skin of Sweetpea's forearm.

She hoped like hell she was right, that this was a trick of the creatures and her hand would fall away and transform into a dusky heap of worms like before.

Because if she wasn't, and she maimed her sister for trying to help her…

She didn't think the real Sweetpea would ever forgive her.


	16. Chapter 16

A sigh of relief surged through Rocket as she watched her sister's fingers melt into a thick, oily mass and fall to the ground.

"Whatever you are," she stated, flipping the bayonet from a dagger fighting position to a sword stance, "we're done here." A quick slash and she decapitated the thing before her, watching the rest of the body collapse and dissolve back into a pool of writhing sludge.

This obstacle defeated, Rocket turned and sprinted toward the cave, ducking and cutting as she went. Every step seemed to be plagued with tendrils firing at her from all directions. She kept the majority of the strikes at bay, the keen edge of her bayonet sliced the grasping appendages to ribbons as she cut a swath toward her destination, but she was only one, and they were many. Each touch the creatures managed to land elicited a gasp as they hit their mark. Rocket's skin burned in agony as she saw her flesh darken. She fought down the onsetting panic, fearing that the searing pain meant poison. If it was, Rocket hoped she would be strong enough to finish her task before the venom overtook her.

Her arms ached from the numerous blows her enemy had landed. Once strong muscles and tendons seemed frail, taxed by the strain of cutting away so many clinging tendrils. Rocket managed, through a great feat of will, to drag her head up and look at her desired destination, the cave mouth was nearly before her, she had almost made it. Rocket put all the energy she had left into those last few remaining steps. She could feel the earth, solid beneath her, as she charged forward into the darkness.

Inside the cave was silence, and absolute blackness. The dark was different from the creatures though, it seemed to be a simple absence of light, as opposed to the dedicated wholesale destruction of it. Through some blessed gift, and Rocket had no idea who had bestowed it, the monsters could not follow her here. Where here was, however, was still yet to be determined.

"Hello?" She called out, hearing her voice echo off the walls. "Is anyone here?" Whispered repetitions of her words answered back, but soon even that faded into silence.

Rocket continued onward, not really sure of the direction she was traveling in, but following some inner instinct that guided her. Step by step she moved forward, alone in the dark. She wondered if she should run, perhaps time passed in this cave the same way it had outside, and every second she spent wandering around in this blackness meant another moment Babydoll spent fighting the monsters and losing ground.

Rocket kept on at a steady pace, counting her steps as she went. When she hit two hundred, the feeling of lost time became too much, and she broke into a run.

She ran, she ran until her legs burned and her lungs felt like they would burst from lack of air. She stumbled, but kept running, desperation and fear settling over her. Her pace began to slow when she realized there would be no end to this maze of shadow. Eventually she stopped altogether, her muscles and her soul burning as she let her failure sink in. She felt her hands go weak, loosening her grip on the weapons until she heard them clatter down to the stone floor. She sank down with them, miserable, and hugged her knees to her chest. Her head bowed low as she mentally apologized to Babydoll for being unworthy of her trust. In the silence of her total despair, Rocket heard a voice.

" _You fill these spaces, your weakness  
_ _Strengthens these walls."_

The voice was familiar, like Babydoll would sound if she didn't have to bear all the pressures of securing her freedom and the losses of her friends and family. Rocket reacted in an instant, snatching her weapons up as she stood, ready for action. As the music faded out, Rocket could see a dull red glow ahead of her, and she moved toward it.

A huge crystal sat in the middle of a small cavern, its crimson light glowing brighter with each step.

Rocket was close enough to touch it, so she reached her hand out and caressed the surface. It was hard, like glass or stone, but warm to the touch. Something appeared to be trapped inside of it, and she tried to peer past the cloudy surface into the depths of the crystal.

The outlines of a weapon stared back at her, a long, stout stave capped by a massive, sweeping blade. The ancient wood of the handle was worn dark and smooth by the many hands of those who had held it before her. The metal of the blade glinted darkly, a diamond amongst coal. It was a scythe, she recalled, after hearing her uncle call it that when he'd shouldered it and taken it out to the fields. The same fields she used to go horseback riding with Sweetpea in. Fields she might go back to one day, if she ever found the Real blade confused her though, instead of jutting to the side like her uncle's, it shot straight up, making it look more like a spear than a harvest tool.

How to unleash this weapon, Rocket didn't know, she only knew that she must. A growl of frustration as she beat the pommel of her bayonet against the slick surface. The metal ricocheted off the covering, slipping out of her palm as her fingers crashed into the rock, bruising them in the process.

"Ow!" She hissed, squeezing her throbbing hand as the bayonet clattered to the hoped the compression would alleviate the pain. She crouched down and retrieved her blade, a slithering noise as she housed it back in its sheath. She went back to examining the stone, circling it as she pondered her thoughts aloud.

"So...I can't crack you with metal, eh?" She spoke, circling the stone as she looked it up and down, her fingers dragging across it absentmindedly. Rocket continued to stare at the puzzle before her, trying to figure out what she had missed. She thought back to the other missions, where their weapons, cunning, and strength of will were the only tools needed.

It was then that she remembered, her bayonet was not her only weapon. Her pistol was out in a heartbeat, aimed straight for the core of the crystal as Rocket stepped back. If this tactic worked, the weapon would be freed, but so would a metric ton of razor sharp rock, and all of it would be aimed straight for Rocket's scantily clad body.

"Okay..." She muttered, trying to both calm and convince herself that this was the proper course of action. A breath as she settled herself, forcing her shoulders to relax as she leveled the muzzle before her. "You can do this, you have to."

A pause, as she knew she hadn't quite convinced herself yet.

"C'mon Rocket! She's counting on you, there's nobody else left to do it, it's gotta be you."

Her hands felt clammy as she curled her finger around the trigger.

"One." She saw the victory in her mind's eye, a sparkling explosion of crystalline dust as the scythe toppled forward, her prize to win.

"Two." She took a final step back, making damned sure she was far enough away from the stone's possible blast radius. The weapon wouldn't do her any good if she was too damaged to wield it.

"Three!" Rocket screwed her eyes shut and held her breath as she squeezed the trigger.

A bright muzzle flash lit up the cave, though Rocket missed it, seeing nothing but darkness behind closed lids. The recoil from the flintlock pushed her back another foot. A thunderous crash resounded as the glossy hulk fractured, a groaning noise emerging as the crystal cracked down the center. The impact sent the two largest shards on their final journey as they blew apart on the solid granite of the floor.

Silence prevailed as the echoes from the final explosion died out. Rocket blew out a sigh of relief, unnerved when she realized she'd been shaking.

When she looked up, Rocket saw her prize, the scythe resting atop a pile of glittering sand. She stepped towards it, kneeling down before it and reverently laying a hand on the careworn surface. The wood felt warm and inviting as she touched it, like the weapon had been waiting for her. She wrapped her fingers around it fully, pulling the war scythe closer. A strange new confidence flooded through her as she noticed the blade glowing. Rocket brought the edge near her face for a more thorough inspection. The glow was finely etched script, written in a strong, yet delicate, hand.

_Crawling out of the darkness  
_ _My enemy falls._

"Appropriate." Rocket decided, it was almost as if the weapon knew what she needed it for.

The words shone brighter, and Rocket felt a dark, malevolent presence behind her. A shiver ran through her frame as her ears detected a wet squishing noise, as if someone had poured hundreds of pounds of ooze into the cave.

Hundreds of pounds of black, insidious, sentient ooze.

"Not this time." Rocket promised. "I'm not helpless this time." She advanced on the line, scythe in hand. At her words, dozens of russet sparks kindled to life. The slithering worms coalesced into a solid column this time. The creatures were no longer interested in convincing or manipulating Rocket, they were set on absolute and total decimation.

A pillar wider than Rocket's torso shot towards her, the force behind it powerful and terrifying. Rocket swiveled at the last moment, and the wall of blackness shot past her. With a yell, Rocket tensed her core and brought her arms over her head. She swung the scythe down with every fiber of her being.

The blade sheared through the pulsing river, slicing all the way down until the tip grated across the floor. Thus disconnected, the colossal heap slammed to the ground with a distinct thud.

Rocket recovered in an instant, whipping the blade up to defend herself while the monster regrouped to attack again. She was stunned when the tonnage of tissue remained before her, still and unmoving. Whatever this weapon was made of, it could hurt the creatures. Rocket's features lit up with a wicked smile as she stepped toward her nemesis, finally gaining ground against a seemingly invincible foe.

The line of sludged retreated, not much, but enough for Rocket to know that the tables had turned, and she was now an enemy to respected, rather than helpless prey. Elongated appendages shot out once more, a quickfire barrage from the mob, hoping to overwhelm the girl and take her unawares. In the dim light of the cave, Rocket felt the attack more than saw it, she spun the scythe by one of the center prongs. The still glowing sickle edge hummed as it beat through the air, shredding the speeding tendrils to bits as the fell to the floor, and still Rocket advanced.

"This is for trying to trick me." A final spin as she arrested the scythe's movement and drove the shaft down and across in front of her. The tip hewed a gash into the seething mass, spreading its faint crimson glow wherever it touched.

The power of wielding the newfound item was intoxicating, and Rocket found an arrogant chuckle bubbling up as she cut down her target. Piles of worms began to accrue around the space where Rocket stood as she fought, all of them stilled in death. A fighter's blood thrilled through Rocket's veins and her heart sang, the melody of the place harmonizing with it.

" _Making noise through the silence  
_ _Hearing your call."_

The voice reminded her; reminded her that she had someone to find, a promise to keep.

"And this..." Rocket's grip was solid and sure as she let the weight of the weapon take her in a full blown, spinning revolution.

"This one is for..." She exposed her back to her once indomitable foe for a split second before she faced it a final time, with all the momentum of the weapon behind this final strike.

" **Babydoll!** " She shouted as she brought the blade down slightly below waist height, it tore through the midnight sea in its entirety. A rumbling noise sounded from the far depths of the cave, getting louder as the echoes blended into one. The ground shook beneath her feet, and an enormous pressure beat against her skin. There was no dull glow from the strike this time, but a light so intense it was like staring into the sun. Rocket shied away, shielding her eyes.

The rumbling turned into a roar, that gave way to an awful tearing sound, like someone had ripped the world out of place. Rocket protected herself the best she could, latching onto the weapon with an adamantine death grip, lest she lose this coveted prize.

Suddenly she was flung free, free of the noise, the shaking, the pressure, but no bearings as to up or down, or where she was.

The once thing she remained certain of, was that she had the scythe. Rocket cracked a single eyelid open, peeking out at what she assumed to be nothingness.

What stared back at her was the valley, still rife with an endless ocean of dark, infectious monsters.

With a start, both of Rocket's eyes shot fully open, almost knocking her to the ground as all her senses returned with them, chiefly her sense of gravity...

Her skin still burned from the earlier attack, but the lethargy was kept at bay now. Rocket looked at the stout weapon in her hands, most likely the source of her immunity. It did not matter now if there were a thousand monsters, or a million, Rocket knew she could hurt them, knew that her fight was not hopeless.

But the fight did not matter to Rocket. The only thing that mattered, as she threw herself into the fray with the deadly grace of abandonment, was that she had a promise to keep.

And nothing, in this world, or any other world, was going to keep her from fulfilling that promise.

Nothing.


	17. Chapter 17

"Again!" He commanded, circling her with the same intent as a stalking predator. "Again, and this time sharper, with more feeling!"

"Yes, Maestro." Her voice a quiet contrast against his harsh outburst.

Blue strolled back towards the tape reel, restarting the track from the beginning. Strains of notes filtered in, filling the room with sound. Babydoll began to move and sway to the beat, trying her best to follow the strange and difficult choreography. All the while Blue stared at her. His eyes were hungry, and that look only seemed to intensify as his outbursts became more frequent, his tone angrier each time.

"No!" He interrupted, abruptly halting the song halfway through an eight count. An eight count that required a particularly difficult move. The disjointed hold almost put Babydoll to the floor as she struggled to maintain her balance.

"That's not right!" He accused. Blue moved towards her, his tapered and muscular body displayed by dark tights and the close fitting, sleeveless shirt he wore. He worked very hard to be where he was today, and he wasn't about to let anyone forget it.

"You do it like this." He demonstrated, unleashing an explosive kick followed by a series of dramatic movements, almost too fast for the eye to catch. "Show me." He ordered.

Babydoll complied, running through the movements as she believed them to be. Her spirit shrank as she spotted the telltale twitch of Blue's mustache, a sure sign of a derisive sneer and another chastisement.

She tried to ignore it, instead pretending like she hadn't seen him and starting the sequence over from the top. He saw right through her ruse, and in two long strides was upon her, catching her leg midkick and holding her body still.

"How dare you..." He hissed, tightening his grip on her. His face showed know signs of strain or tension, letting Babydoll know how little effort Blue required to immobilize her, he could hold her all day, if he wished to.

A ripple under taut skin as Blue flexed his muscles further, elevating her leg even more. He stretched the limb out until Baby's tendons were screaming. She winced as the pain became too much to bear, Blue's reaction to this was cold, mirthless laughter.

"Your kicks need to hit this height," he cinched his hands tighter for emphasis and she gasped aloud, "and the movement needs to be strong, solid, or you are worthless to me." He released her and went back to the tape, rewinding it, his finger hovered over the play button as he spoke, each word ground out with anger and authority. "Now, do it...again...and this time..." A menacing pause. "No mistakes!"

"Wait!" She pleaded, sweat soaking through her clothes as her chest heaved in an attempt to support her oxygen starved body. "Blue, please stop, I can't do this anymore, I need a break."

"You need a break?" He roared, his footfalls heavy as he stepped towards her, his broad chest and shoulders towering over her as he faced her down. He seized her wrists and backed her towards the warm up bar. She started when the wood impacted against her lower back, but her movement was stalled within Blue's hands.

"You take a break when I say so. You're the one that came and begged me, remember?" His eyes were dark and hard, this was the tenacity that brought him up from the low ranks of nobodies and made him ruler of an empire. "You were nothing when you came here, nothing!" He reminded her. "Everything you have now, skill, talent...beauty." Blue opened the distance between them enough to scan her up and down, his eyes lingering in uncomfortable places. "Everything you have, **I** gave you!"

He pulled her close in a single fluid motion, both her small wrists held captive by a single hand as Blue's other arm braced against her back. "But if you don't want to dance anymore, I'm sure there's other ways for you to please your Maestro." He hinted darkly.

A crashing noise sounded behind them, causing Blue to forget his tirade and look away, his eyes falling on a figure only seconds behind Babydoll's. The lapse was enough though, and the beginnings of a smile had reached Baby's face by the time Blue recognized who it was.

"You!" He sneered, his disgust evident.

"Rocket!" Babydoll cheered.

Rocket stepped through the portal, looking entirely out of place in the dance studio, dressed as she was in full battle regalia and holding a six foot scythe. "I told you I'd come back." She looked at Babydoll, meaningfully. Rocket managed to tear her gaze away long enough to pin a withering stare upon Blue. "Let her go." She commanded.

"I'm afraid I can't do that, Rocket. You see, Babydoll here already promised herself to me, body and soul, if only I could teach her to dance well enough that she wouldn't have to beg for attention or rely on others to support her. So you see," he concluded, "you're too late."

"Like hell I am," Rocket retorted. "Baby," she addressed herself beyond Blue, "it's a trick, some ability of the monsters here, led by the biggest, ugliest monster of them all." She glared at Blue before continuing, "It almost worked on me too, he tried to send Sweetpea to distract me, keep me from getting this." Rocket shook the scythe in her hands. "But you failed, Blue, you came so close, but you just couldn't get it right, could you?"

"You were supposed to leave." He growled. "You had everything you needed, Sweetpea is everything you desire most in this world, that should have been enough."

"A few weeks ago, you would have been right." Rocket admitted, taking a few leisurely steps forward. "A few weeks ago, the only thing I wanted was to leave and forget the terrible years I spent as a prisoner of Lennox House." She stopped as she passed by the tape reel and tapped the play button, the click sounding loud within the pause. "But that was before she showed up." Rocket said, as a wholly different set of chords released themselves from the speakers.

_My heart, grows stronger._

_Piece by piece,_

_whole again._

"That was before I knew how strong love could be," Rocket advanced upon him, settling the scythe across her body, her arms and shoulders loosening into a fighting stance, "and that's why I know, for certain, that you'll never win."

She looked into Blue, evaluating him for the first time with eyes unclouded by his deception. She almost felt pity for him, almost.

"You're incapable of this feeling, Blue, you're far too selfish. Love isn't about control, it's not about keeping people for yourself, locked in, away from the world." A pause as Rocket looked at him, finding only incomprehension and utter loathing for her, he would never understand. "It's about being the best that you are, no more and no less."

"The best that you are is a failure, Rocket." Blue responded, his voice filled with scorn.

Rocket cocked her head in response, "Do you really think that's true? Would a failure have seen past your web of lies, found your one weakness and come back only to bust into your inner sanctum and win the girl?" She smiled and winked at Babydoll with that line.

"You haven't won yet." He reminded her, interrupting Rocket's heroic speech.

"Watch me." She growled, crouching slightly and readying to pounce.

"Rocket, wait!" Babydoll shouted, causing both her and Blue to cease their taunts and turn to look at her. "He's not what he appears to be, he's...stronger than before." Baby's voice sounded flat, her memory of how easily Blue bested her tainting her spirit.

"I know exactly what he is, Baby." Rocket held up her arms to demonstrate, exposing the dark patches marking her skin. "He's a parasite, poison." She shook her head towards Babydoll, who looked down at her wrists, where Blue had grabbed her. "Look, he's infecting you too." The delicate flesh of Baby's forearms were dark and mottled, as if someone had spilled ink there. Babydoll rubbed at it, trying to remove the stain, but Blue's mark was indelible.

"Wha...what is this?" Babydoll asked, her voice quavering slightly.

"It's his power over you, your fear." Rocket explained.

"But you're..." Babydoll ventured, looking at the myriad collection of spots and stripes coating her friend's body, "and you're still standing strong, still fighting, how is that possible?"

"I have this." Rocket grinned, holding up the weapon. "It kept me whole, until I could come back for you. You were right," she continued, "this is exactly what we needed."

Blue let out an aggrieved sigh, the sound interrupting the moment. "Well girls, this reunion has been fun and all, but I believe I was in the middle of making sure my dominion was complete. For me to do that, Rocket here needs to cease drawing breath. Once  _that's_  dealt with, Babydoll will finally realize that hope is futile, and there truly is no escaping me."

In a movement too fast to see, Blue lunged from his relaxed but imposing stance. His right hand flung out in a gesture towards Rocket, the tips of his fingers darkening and elongating as they spewed forth on a direct path towards Rocket's exposed throat. As his appendages sped forward, Blue let out a chuckle.

"Now we'll see what you're really made of, little hero."


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured this was a good stopping point, I am currently working on a sequel involving Sweetpea's travels in the outside world.

Rocket tried to draw breath, but failed as she felt coils constrict about her throat. She tried to move, to bring the scythe up to sever the appendages and wipe that clever smirk off his face, but her arms refused to obey. Rocket's eyes rotated down to find that her neck was not the only part of her in bindings.

"Gotcha." Blue said, one eyebrow curving up as he considered his prey. A flash of movement caught his eye as Babydoll shot forward, about to assist her friend.

"Ah ah ah." He warned, holding up a single finger to stop her. "One more move and I snap her neck like a twig." He tensed his arm and the bindings snugged tighter.

Babydoll froze in place, eyes wide as a gurgling sound escaped from Rocket's throat. She needed to figure a way out of this place, this trap that Blue had set. Behind her eyes, Baby's mind churned a thousand miles a minute. She would...she would find a way, any way to save Rocket from this mess.

"Stop!" Blue ordered, seeing the machinations of a plan forming. "You stop that!" An errant backhand knocked Babydoll's mind from the task at hand, leaving her reeling. Blue was exasperated. "What do I have to do to make you understand?" He pleaded; he would do anything to make her his Queen, why wouldn't she just love him back?

"N-Nothing, I get it now." Babydoll whispered, her head still spinning, the words were barely audible.

"What...what did you say?" Blue responded, incredulous as the words stuck in his throat.

"You don't have to show off anymore. I...I'm yours." She looked up at Blue from beneath tousled blonde bangs. Her dark, liquid eyes promised secrets he had only dreamed of wrenching from her by force.

Blue remained unconvinced. "What about her?" He asked, jerking his head in Rocket's direction.

"She's...she's nothing. Only a diversion, an experiment." A stifled cry of pain sounded, and Baby had to force herself to look away from Rocket.

"Truly?" Blue asked, his face hopeful but his eyes remained sharp, trying to ferret out any signs of deception.

Babydoll stared back at him, her gaze even and unwavering. "Truly." She echoed.

A shuddering sigh escaped in the silence that followed Babydoll's response, as if a massive weight had been lifted.

"Then prove it." Blue dared, as a ripple of motion telegraphed itself through his frame. The action finalized itself into an explosive swing as Blue disengaged his mutated hand from Rocket.

Frozen in midair, shock and hurt were the two emotions Rocket managed to impart in her last look at Babydoll, mere heartbeats before her body slammed into a wall of plate glass mirror. Hairline fissures cobwebbed across the silvery surface wherever Rocket touched, creating a singular moment of grotesque beauty; the would be heroine caught in the silvery web of a most vindictive spider.

But the image lasted only a second, as the cracks burst into countless razor shards, sending a glittering cloud forth as Rocket's body crashed to the floor.

Babydoll stared at the crumpled heap that only moments ago had been the person that meant the most to her in the world. The final shards detached themselves from the mirror and followed their mates to the studio floor. They tinkled when they impacted the hardwood, and nestled in any crevice of Rocket's fallen form when they did not, draping her in crystal. Babydoll's expression remained blank, impassive. It had to, as throughout this entire assault, Blue had never taken his eyes from her.

One last motion worked itself through Rocket, her chest expanding as she tried desperately to suck in oxygen. A cough as she failed, twitched once, and lay still.

Babydoll forced herself not to react, to remain calm and stifle any emotions that threatened to surface.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she shifted her attention to Blue's face.

"Satisfied?" She asked, one eyebrow rose in challenge.

"Almost," he admitted. He stepped towards her and raised a hand. The appendage was no longer a writhing mass of darkness, just five digits of calloused pink skin. Babydoll's eyelids twitched as she capped her innate first response, which was to flinch away from Blue's touch as he laid his palm across her cheek; the same hand he had just used to destroy Rocket.

"Stop fighting." He whispered, leaning in to kiss her.

Babydoll responded to the invitation, their lips touched and Blue's eyes fluttered shut as she melted into him. It was everything he had wished for and dreamed of during those endless obsessive nights of suffering he endured before he restored himself to power. But this victory was so much sweeter, as she offered her treasures willingly to him, instead of forcing him to resort to force.

A playful swipe against his lips was all the indication he needed as his tongue demanded entrance. He danced with hers briefly before asserting his dominance. Babydoll rolled with the gesture, teasing the sensitive muscle's underside with slow, tantalizing circles.

So lost in this embrace was Blue that he lost track of his surroundings entirely. His senses were drowned in the deliciously scented sea of his beloved. He would not, could not touch, taste, see nor hear anything that did not emanate from Babydoll herself.

Certainly not the irregular, halting footsteps that were creeping up behind him.

Nor the wheezing cough of Rocket, clearing blood and mucous out of her airways so she could take a decent breath and swing the scythe.

He did, however, feel the excruciating bite of steel as it sunk into his flesh, severing muscle and tendon, veins and arteries indiscriminately as the blade nestled deep within him, at the crux of his neck and shoulder.

Only then did he pull free of the embrace, needing to look upon the face of his betrayer, to see what pretty lies hid such a treasonous heart.

Babydoll stared back at him, eyes widened in surprise. This expression only lasted for a moment before she managed to lock her visible emotions down behind an unreadable mask once more. That subtle sparkle that drew him in only minutes ago vanishing almost as fast as his life's blood, which was pouring out of the wound in torrents.

Blue could only stare down at his injury, dumbstruck. Was it his imagination, or was there a pulsing light bursting forth from his shoulder alongside his blood?

He didn't have long to ponder this thought, as he caught a flicker of motion from the periphery of his vision. He turned his attention back across from him, watching in morbid fascination as Babydoll's dusky soft eyelashes drooped shut into a singular blink.

* * *

There was blood, so much blood.

Not even those Hitchcock films they screened in the theaters managed to do it any justice.

It got everywhere; it coated her hands, soaked into her clothes, crept up into the bed linens.

Wait, no, that was wrong, there were no bed linens here, not anymore, that was the Brothel.

There was no going back now, not after what they'd done. They were left in the Institution, in a filthy hovel of a back room, stinking of fear, sex and human excrement. The only furnishings in the room were a chair, modified to accommodate restraints, and a stained and broken mattress haphazardly tossed across the floor.

Babydoll examined the upright occupant of the room, Rocket stood before her.

Her body was covered in a myriad of cuts and bruises gleaned from goodness knew where, most likely the real world translation of her epic battle with Blue and his minions. Those caramel colored eyes, before so bright and inviting, bringing hope to places that had forever known darkness, were now flat and apathetic, a stranger looked back at Babydoll.

Baby's gaze drifted down from those haunting eyes to the thin, blood stained shift that covered Rocket's frame. The cloth barely covered her, and she could see the fine down on her arms, what little there was that hadn't been slicked with blood, standing on end as she shook in the cool antiseptic air of the place. It was taking Rocket everything that she possessed to stay her ground and remain standing. Finally Baby found the courage to look at the item that had brought her liberation, which Rocket still clutched in white knuckled hands.

Rocket held a bloodied fire axe. Babydoll looked past her, taking in the splintered door frame and peering through the portal beyond; she saw a trail of broken safety glass smeared with what appeared to be Rocket's own blood littering the hallway.

No, coming to find Babydoll hadn't been easy, but Rocket had found a way all the same. But now the rescuer was lost, or was she?

"Rocket?" Babydoll managed, stepping carefully over Blue and trying not to slip in the ever increasing pool of blood still leaching into the linoleum. "Rocket," she tried again, taking another step and breaking the barrier of Rocket's personal space. "Are you okay?" She laid a delicate hand on her friend's shoulder when there was no response.

Rocket reared back at the touch, as if she had been torched with a red hot brand. Babydoll shrank away, guarding her head and shoulders, fearful that she was about to share Blue's fate. When the blow never came, she cautiously peeked out from behind the protection of her forearms.

Rocket let the axe drop from her hands, a clattering sound rang in the room as the blade smacked into the floor, scattering congealed droplets of scarlet against the dingy white tile.

"Am I...'okay'?" At this, Rocket tilted her head back and started to laugh softly, the sound increasing in volume and frenzy until she was near seizing and cackling like a maniac. "How, in this world, or any other worlds that we created, could I _ever_  be 'okay'?"

"We...we  _won_  Rocket, we beat him." Babydoll tried, her tone soothing in an attempt to keep her friend from reacting with violence.

" _We_  won, huh? Is that what  _we_  did, Baby? Because I'm pretty sure  _I_  just destroyed an army and killed our worst enemy, only to be beaten bloody and left for dead while  _you_  abandoned me to suck face after explaining that I was  _nothing_  to you." Rocket spat.

"That was a trick, Rocket, I thought you would have known that." Baby explained searching those impenetrable eyes for some semblance of the woman she loved. "There were no good ways out of there," she admitted, "so I used whatever I had to to gain the upper hand."

"The upper hand against whom, I wonder?" Rocket mused aloud. She paused a moment to glance at Baby's hand, still clutching Dr. Gorski's master key. "I should leave you right now," she threatened, "but some of us in this room aren't monsters."

Babydoll hoped she had been included in the 'not monsters' category, but after Rocket's cold accusation, she didn't know what she could believe in anymore.

"Well, are you coming or not?" Rocket asked, her sharp tone shattering Baby's reverie. When she didn't respond quickly enough, Rocket made the decision for her. Grasping Babydoll's wrist, gently, but firmly, she pulled the both of them out the door and down the final hallway, chunks of glass crunching under their feet as they walked.

They were confronted by the final door, EXIT painted across the sheet metal in simplistic bold font.

"Wouldja do the honors?" Rocket asked. Babydoll looked at her for a moment, incredulous, did she see that rakish sparkle returning, or was it just a figment of her hopeful imagination.

Baby slid the key into the bronze lock and turned, the tumblers squeaking as they engaged. Finally the bolt gave way and the door swung open, revealing parched grass and a gorgeous Vermont sunset.

Babydoll was downright shocked when she felt Rocket's cool and sticky fingers entwine with her own, until she remembered exactly how long it had been since Rocket had been outside of Lennox House.

Rocket looked at her, those flat callous eyes warring with the scared, tagalong little sister that wanted so badly just to believe in someone. Trust is a strange creature; just when you think you've damaged it beyond all repair, the tentative threads that remain try to bind themselves back into a whole.

It wasn't a magical cure for the fracture in their bond, but it was a start.

They moved together, as if by unspoken agreement, and took their first steps towards freedom, the soft blades bending beneath their feet as they set forth into a world they could truly make their own.

_Beyond that door, outside of this place, the world is waiting for you._


End file.
